


kings and queens

by kissingonconey



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 22:21:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1363837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissingonconey/pseuds/kissingonconey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why are they at this point, he wonders. Why couldn't they go on the way they had been for years upon years, never acting?" AU as of 2x11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. January, February

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from ff.net! Written Dec 2012. 
> 
> For this chapter, I'm not a huge fan of the yoga scene and the texting scene, but I'm not gonna play with it right now. Hope this doesn't totally ruin the story. I think these are the two weakest scenes in the story, so it can only go up from here.

_January_

After the Christmas party, all the frivolity begins to wane. Hardman is gone, but clean up has to begin—in earnest. And eyes have to be kept on all loose ends, including Louis Litt.

Mike is constantly distracted, to the point that Harvey has actually considered having a personal conversation with him (they can’t have distractions), and that puts more pressure on Donna to pick up the slack. She’s happy to do so—it’s been too long since it’s been her and Harvey sitting in the one lit office in the entire building, the smell of lo mein in the air, the indiscriminate shoulder touches when they find something, the little puffs of air that comes with close laughter.

Priorities get rearranged, and things fall into the normal of a few years past. But Donna knows something is off in the cautious way he watches her leave every day, and her tentative jokes, and their quiet warm way around each other. She knows she has to start reconsidering her and Harvey after all that happened in 2012. She knows that their actions have been too telling, that they are in a place that is no longer safe.

Harvey starts realizing that something is about to happen.

*

Sometimes they want each other more than anything. If they knew how perfectly their fantasies intersected, they might make a move, but in some ways, it might make them even more afraid.

She would like to slide into this lap, hands clutching his collar, her kiss desperate.

He wants to feel up her skirt, to play with the edges of her lacy panties, to taste her freckles on her goosebump skin.

She wants to curl up next to him, lie in the sun with him contently, only rising to drink coffee or grab a new section of the newspaper. She thinks that even if he imagines her in his bed, he would never like that image in the aftermath.

Donna is the only woman that Harvey can see spread out in his bed in the afternoon, the only woman he considers buying take-out and daisies for, the only woman he’d like to watch a movie with or read a book too. Donna, with all her drama and jokes, is romance, and that scares him so he keeps it to himself.

He doesn’t love her, she doesn’t love him. But they know that the undercurrents of love are always running, alongside possibility, in their veins. They know that those rivers formed at their first glance, even though neither of them believes in love at first sight.

*

Donna considers talking to him, bringing it up and out into the open. On one hand, she has to get it out—both the words (she cares about him more than she should, her loyalty to him is clouding her life, she can’t be Donna without him) and the sexual tension. Unfortunately, before she can make a decision, Zoe Lawford makes a large return into Harvey’s life. It starts with Zoe’s help on the Kolawksi case, and culminates in Donna finding a thong sticking out of one of Harvey’s desk drawers.

“What the hell?” she says, trying to keep her eyes off the lacy red.

He grins. “Just a little fun for the New Year. Won’t happen again, promise.”

“All of the New York skyline mourns of the loss of Zoe Lawford’s boobs being broadcast out your window.”

“Jealous?” he says.

“Right, Harvey, _I’m_ jealous. Let’s be serious. I’m too awesome for my own good.”

He laughs warmly. “And you can have any man in this city.”

Later, at her desk, Donna does something she’s never before: ponders their exchange, mulls it over in her head again and again like a high school girl. This is when she knows that from her side, the line is being erased.

“Fuck it,” she says.

*

It was going and coming back that did it for her, Donna knows. With the Hardman trial she could allow herself not to think about the implications of giving in and being back at Harvey’s side so easily. She doesn’t do this, she thinks. She’s not easy. But somehow for Harvey she always is.

*

He’s trying with Zoe, because he knows she cares about him and she’s sweet. So he keeps trying to make her happy, and be good to her. But Harvey seriously can’t believe that the yoga class Zoe picked is the one Donna frequents too.

“This is weird,” he whispers to his girlfriend. “I can’t watch Donna do down dog.”

He can though, and he watches each bead of sweat slide around her freckles and stain her sports bra. Her ass is pert and he could cup while she would grind into him. Her shoulder muscles ripple under strain, and he has the strangest urge to hands over them to relax them. Followed by his tongue, to get her going again. He wants to straddle her on top of her purple yoga mat.

Ever since she returned from the unplanned vacation, also known as her firing, he can’t help but watch her and want her. And so he ends up following Donna movements instead of the instructor’s.

“Let’s go say hi to Donna,” Zoe says cheerfully after the class.

“Sure,” Harvey says.

As Zoe and Donna exchange hellos, he watches his executive assistant, now in such a different setting than their usual interactions. Her hair is up, her face is a sheen of perspiration and calm. She looks unpainted, unrefined, and so beautiful. He lets himself think it, because he’s not sure what else he could think about in that moment.

“So you’re trying out yoga now, Harvey?” Donna asks, turning her smile to him.

“Uh, yeah.” A pause. “All the different positions, you know.”

She picks up on the banter right away.

“Here I was thinking you knew all the positions like the back of your hand.”

Zoe begins to laugh, and it cuts into their repartee so abruptly that Harvey and Donna both stop to stare. Donna recovers first.

“I’m glad you got him to come, Zoe. I’ve been harping on him about stretching his muscles for, oh, ten years.”

He wonders if the reference to the length of their relationship is supposed to be a jab towards Zoe. He can tell that Donna’s hurt for some reason, although he can’t figure out why, but she’s not usually so obvious.

“By the way, Harvey, I was just checking your messages, and Scottie called. She wants you to give her a call.” Donna smirks at him, Zoe frowns, and Harvey wonders if everyone in New York knows his history.

“Thanks, Donna,” he says, gritting his teeth. I hate you, say his eyes.

“No problem.” Her smile is dangerous.

His dreams include both Scottie and Zoe, but the one he remembers clearly is Donna spread wide on her yoga mat, begging for him to make her scream. Twisted around each other, he fucked her hard, until her pale skin was pure red, her hair knotted, her mouth bruised from kisses. It smelled like sweat in the dream, and his bed smelled like sweat and cum in the morning, and it was like he was fifteen again.

*

Scottie’s calls annoy her because Donna isn’t a fan of her executive assistant, Maude, and because Scottie, now married, seems to be toeing a strange line with Harvey. Zoe irritates Donna because she has been taking a more permanent place in Harvey’s life—and Donna can’t help but feel pushed out by both Mike and Zoe now. But she hates the new ADA, Katrina Bennett, the most. Even Bennett’s innocuous questions (“Oh, you worked in the ADA’s office too?”) seem pointed, aggressive, and insinuating.

“Why is she even here all the time?” Donna rants to Rachel. “And always at my desk at that.”

“Maybe she has the hots for Harvey,” Rachel sing-songs over tequila.

“Seriously, shut up.” Donna sucks a lime. “But honestly, I think she has it out for me or something.”

“You’re paranoid.”

“Not my fault Hardman set me up with that memo. I have full rights to be a little paranoid.”

“You’re jealous because Harvey thinks she has a nice ass.” Rachel frowns. “I’m pretty sure Mike thinks the same thing. Seriously, the only time he shows any interest in anything is when she walks by.”

Donna pats Rachel’s shoulder awkwardly. Comfort has always been hard for her, and drunk Donna knows little else but table dancing and flirting.

“How’s Mike doing?” Donna murmurs.

“You see him more than me.” This isn’t true. More often than not Harvey has ventured to the associates’ pen to talk to his protégé, and he has returned shaking his head. What Donna knows is that Mike isn’t doing well following his grandmother’s death, and that most likely (although he hasn’t been tested again) Mike has returned to his smoking habits. His fight with Rachel hasn’t helped things. With other things to worry about, no one has cracked down on the kid yet, but Louis will get there soon enough, and even with Harvey’s help, smoking is an offense in the office and Mike will go down.

It’s problematic not only because Harvey (and hell, Donna too) likes the kid and doesn’t want him fired, but also because they need that mind to protect the firm from threats right now and start winning some big cases so that all the past drama with the partners can be erased.

Rachel drains the shot. “Let’s not talk about it. You and Harvey are way more important and interesting.”

“You give us way too much credit.”

“Do I? Ten years, Donna. It’s his longest relationship.” She pauses, giggles drunkenly and then nods. “He was a mess without you. He asked you to come back. What does that say?”

Donna doesn’t respond.

“Look, Donna, you need to do something ridiculous. Get Harvey’s attention.”

Donna downs her shot too, and then orders another two. “Specifics, Rachel, specifics.”

“Hm…a dirty text?”

“Too obvious.”

“A dirty picture?”

“Too dangerous.”

Rachel taps the table with her fingers. “Okay, how about a mildly suggestive picture that was meant for someone else that you accidentally sent to him?”

Perhaps it’s not the most creative plan, but it’s better than the other things that Rachel has suggested, and Donna is drunk, and Rachel is desperate for a little fun. Donna agrees. They decide that a picture of Donna’s sex hair with a suggestive message will suffice, particularly because Rachel says, “You do have the most beautiful hair, Donna,” and Donna can't exactly resist a nice compliment.

They take the picture in the bathroom of the bar, like two pesky college students. Donna smudges her lipstick semi-tastefully, and musses her hair up, until it looks like she’s been giving a man intense head.

“I’d want you,” Rachel comments, and they collapse into giggles.

Donna captions the photo: Hope you get to this sight in real life sometime, preferably between your legs.

Three minutes later—

Harvey: I hope so too. Where are you?

Donna laughs, passes the phone to Rachel, and then responds: God, sorry, that wasn’t supposed to be for you.

Harvey: Lucky I got it anyway.

Donna: It was for Mike. Cheer him up, you know. I’m at Bar Fly.

Harvey: Ugh, seriously? You have no taste, Paulsen.

Donna: I could taste you.

Harvey: Mike’ll be jealous.

Donna: Zoe too.

There’s a long pause in which Donna downs another shot, somewhat out of nervousness. He’ll know she’s playing, but it’s further than it’s been taken for years, and bringing up Zoe was probably a bad move. Finally—

Harvey: I’ll let her be pissed for a night.

His next text comes quickly: Have a good night with Rachel, but I don’t want to see you too hungover tomorrow. Cheers. And feel free to come over whenever.

She sends him a winking face, and then puts her phone back in her bag, satisfied.

“That’ll do it,” Rachel says, as they close the tab. “You’ll have his attention now.”

All she gets out of it is a large grin the next morning and a coffee that he gives her smugly. Luckily, things are better than alright for a while. The minute she brushes her hair out of her eyes, his attention goes straight to her mouth.

*

But despite her games, Harvey seems too enamored with his waltz between Scottie and Zoe to really pay her the attention Donna deserves (and craves). It’s never been like this before. She knows she’s integral. She knows that Harvey sleeps with women who aren’t her. But to see him volley between two, neither of them Donna, makes her feel strangely useless and unwanted.

*

“So,” Katrina Bennett says, “tell me about yourself, Harvey.”

She stretches her long legs out, and Harvey is a man and he looks at them. He lets his eyes travel up her torso, reaches her breasts and the ends of her blonde hair. He focuses his eyes on hers, and smirks.

“I’m the best closer in this city,” Harvey says. “I think that’s all you really need to know, Ms. Bennett.”

“You have something against the DA, Harvey? Or me? Because you haven’t been very cooperative.”

He moves forward, eyes locked on her. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, and then we can talk about cooperation.”

Bennett inspects her nails.

“Nothing to say?” Harvey says.

“As you well know, Harvey, you and the DA are about to go head to head on a case. I’m simply here to keep this little relationship between the DA’s office and Pearson Hardman amicable.” She reaches out and strokes his tie. “You understand, don’t you?”

“You’re awful at bullshit,” Harvey says, stepping away from her.

“Alright,” Bennett says, leaning her head to the side sweetly. “Let’s talk about something less upsetting. How about that pretty little thing you have out there, taking your calls?”

“Donna?” he scoffs. “What about her?”

“Well, tell me about her. Office gossip says you’ve been working together for years. Also that you have a secret love child together, but I’m not sure if I should be believing that one.”

He can’t help but grin. “Yeah, I keep her around. She’s kind of a lucky charm.”

But when he looks at Bennett, he realizes that he has said that the wrong thing. That Katherine Bennett’s smile is a little bit malicious and a little bit knowing.

*

He stops and takes her in, sitting calmly in his desk chair. The dusky rose color of her dress. The way she weighs his baseball in his hands. Her profile in the dim January sun.

“Someone give you a promotion?” She barely glances at him. “Someone should.”

He doubles back to close his door and then returns to sit on the edge of his desk. They contrast: his dark suit and her light femininity. They’ve never been at such odds before, even when fighting.

“What is it, Donna?”

“Look,” she says, “I’m not doing this. I’m not penciling in your dinner dates, while fielding Scottie’s calls. I’m not going to put time in your schedule for Katherine Bennett. I’m your legal secretary, I’m not here to schedule your sex life. That’s not what I was hired to do.”

“Okay,” he says, somewhat baffled.

“You could say you’re sorry,” she says, lightly throwing the baseball up.

“I could. And you know I’m not going to say it.” He fiddles with a pen. “I respect what you do, Donna. But things are getting complicated and I need your help juggling all of these commitments.”

She purses her lips. “Something’s going on, Harvey. I don’t like it.”

He knows she means in the office, but he knows something’s just going on between them too. It just is.

*

It rarely snows that January. Instead, Donna finds herself trekking through slushy piles of rain and sleet. When she comes home, her toes feel frozen and her boots are leaking.

_February_

They barely spend time together outside of work anyway, but it begins to feel like they never speak except through email and post-it notes.

*

They get close to making the whole tower fall once. On a Saturday.

Donna is on her way to Harvey’s apartment to go over briefs. It’s been a long week, and this is the only day they have to do this, even though technically they’re off pay roll. He promised her take-out sushi and lots of tempura for the trouble, though.

Somehow February has retained the same high temperatures as January (this is a sign of global warming, Norma says), but that doesn’t matter when the whole sky suddenly starts pouring. Coatless, unprepared Donna really has no idea where it comes from. She looks up, the sky is dark, the rain is falling, and suddenly her blouse is ruined and she’s soaked.

The problem is that somehow most New Yorkers have taken courses in meteorology and know when rain is coming. Those unfortunate ones who haven’t never seem to get into a cab at the right time. And Donna just keeps getting wetter as she stands on her street corner waiting for any cab to stop. She eventually takes the subway.

She looks like a mess at his door this time, which is why her frown is so affixed when he opens the door.

“Hey,” he says.

“This is the worst!” she spits at him. “Look at me!”

“Why didn’t you take a cab?”

She stops in his living room, turns and gives her best glare. But he isn’t really interested in that, she realizes, and in the same moment she realizes that her shirt is sticking to her black and lacy bra.

“Harvey!” she snaps.

He drags his eyes up to her face. “Do you want a shower?”

She knows, immediately, that to accept would be dangerous. Stripping of her clothes in his space, wearing something that would undoubtedly be his or a past tryst’s, losing the veneer of work and veering into private territory—all of that would be a poor choice. But she’s freezing, so she nods quickly.

“Towels in the closet,” Harvey says. “You want a sweatshirt?”

“Anything.” His grin grows lecherous, but in a good-natured way, and she rolls her eyes at him, trying to ignore the growing trepidation in her belly.

She fantasizes (again, like the she does all the time these days, it’s too distracting) about all the ways it could happen.

She could be clad only in her towel, and he could ambush her and rub the droplets of water off her shoulder.

She could sit too close to him after the shower, his hands could brush the hem of the sweatshirt and that could be the end of it.

They could just look at each other, breathe the same air between their mouths.

Nothing happens of course. He has a brief spread out in front of him when she returns, and she sits far from him with an orange highlighter and gets to work immediately. There is no time to stare at each other or let his curling lips get to her or cross her legs so that the sweatshirt hitches up inappropriately.

The sweatshirt comes home with her, though. Only because her clothes are still wet.

*

After that Saturday, Donna removes the option of going to his apartment. It’s for the best, though, when Robert Zane opposes Harvey in a case about gender discrimination in the workplace. It’s hard to prove, especially when Zane seems to be at every point, ready to dispatch an army of reasons as to why Harvey’s evidence is null and void.

Harvey is forced to focus, while Mike sulks about Rachel—who is not only upset about Mike’s actions with the married woman, but also about the arrival of her father in Pearson Hardman territory. Zoe is a help, at least, and Donna finds herself only partially resenting the woman’s presence, because it seems to soothe Harvey a little, and really that’s all Donna wants for him: calm and care. Still, she has this feeling that he can’t get her rain soaked hair out of his mind, or her in his sweatshirt, because he looks at her oddly now. It’s not teasing or even full of possibility. It’s a look of knowing, of knowing that they have been in that place of “so close” so many times and now it’s not possible to not be so close—and if you’re so close, and some point you’re going to just be there.

But they resist, as they have always done.

Rachel cries into her shoulder one night, but Harvey wins the case, and Jessica is happy, and Mike is still like a tipping train on a track, and Donna can’t help but watch Harvey through the glass of his office. The firm is falling apart, they are falling apart, but she feels the strangest sense of hope through it all, for at least her and Harvey.

*

He used to like quiet moments with Jessica. The talks on her couches that were about the future and their aspirations. Lately, these talks have been stressful and full of their anxieties about each others’ direction.

Today he watches her carefully. She is beautiful, as always, appearing almost sewn into her purple dress. When she finally turns, she has a smile on her lips.

“Thank you for winning the case against Zane.”

“Did you expect anything else?” he asks. “Especially with the firm in this state? My reputation in this state?”

He can’t help but be defensive, despite her calm demeanor.

“Don’t sass me, Specter,” she says, but it’s mirthful.

“So where are we at?” he asks quietly. “We’re doing better?”

“The partners are happy,” Jessica tells him.

“But.”

“We’re not out of the red by any measure.”

“Bennett,” he says.

She recrosses her legs. “You’ve noticed that her intentions seem less than admirable. It’s difficult for me to intimidate her. She has some protection that keeps her from worrying about her position. But I don’t believe she’s working for the DA’s office, Harvey. There would be no reason for her to be here.”

“We’re bulletproof,” Harvey says. “Don’t worry. With Hardman gone, we’re going to build right back up to where we were and further than that.”

They sit in silence for a moment. She stares at the glass table in front of them, and Harvey can tell that she’s still nervous about their future.

“Where are we with Louis?” he asks finally.

“I see no reason to fire him, Harvey. I am keeping an eye out, of course. I just hope he can somehow realign himself with us.”

“I’m never going to come close to trusting him after all that, Jessica. No goddamned way.”

“You trusted Donna again,” Jessica comments tartly.

He can’t help but stiffen, even though Jessica cares little for the teasing yet desperate need between him and his executive assistant. “That was different. You know that.”

“Just keep your eye on the ball, Harvey. Personal issues do not have a place in this firm. You might want to tell your associate that too.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, wondering how much Jessica actually knows and how much is conjecture. “You worry too much, Jessica. We’re fixing this.”

*

It is and isn’t strange to run into Donna when she is out with some friends at the wine bar. They don’t necessarily run in the same circles, but they have the same jazz club tastes and fine wine palates. And most of her favorite places are places that he has taken her to.

But somehow they’ve always avoided each other, their schedules never match up. He knows her friends by casual passing in conversation. She really only knows about the important people, the ones who call the office. It doesn’t make them any less close, it just helps them keep some distance.

He can’t help but call her beautiful in his mind as her white sweater clings to her frame. He can’t help but stare at the man’s hand on her lower back. He can’t help but force a smile.

“Donna,” he says, “it’s nice to see you here.”

She’s blushing, he can tell even in the dark. It’s as if he’s caught her in some way even though—well, they have no obligations to each other, and he has Zoe after all. But his eyes are still fixated on that hand, the finger caressing her skin under the sweater.

“Hey, Harvey.” Her voice isn’t soft, but it’s too passive to really seem like hers.

There’s an awkward silence, and then he says, “Well, Donna, introduce me to your friends, why don’t you?” He grins at them. “I’m Harvey, Donna’s boss.”

Someone in the group eyes him appreciatively, and sticks a hand out.

“Bella,” the woman says, “and boy have we heard things about you.”

“All good, I know.” She just winks, but he can’t get excited, all for that hand on Donna’s back.

“Bella and Colin,” Donna says, gesturing. “And these two are Kate and Jeremy. And this,” she stops, smiles, “is Clark.”

“Clark,” Harvey says, shaking hands. “Nice to meet you all. And unfortunately I’m going to have to say goodbye in the same breath. Places to be, you know.”

Donna cocks her head, “Sure you don’t want a glass with us, Harvey?”

“I’m not one to interrupt, Donna.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and he realizes that this feels like his last chance. The way he is feeling, the guttural anxiety at Clark’s hand, is a last ditch attempt at letting his want for Donna out. He wonders if Donna feels this way when Zoe links her fingers with his, and hopes, selfishly, that it is.

And at the same time, he feels that she will give up at this moment. That all the dancing around each other is just too much. That the fights between them, that the lust between them, that the stares are just too much. And he just can’t stand that.

Why are they at this point, he wonders. Why couldn’t they go on the way they had been for years upon years, never acting?

It’s because they are inevitable, and he’s known it since the first moment he accidentally touched her.

And because they are inevitable, she won’t be able to give up at all. Neither of them will, and it kills them.

Circles, he thinks. Him and Donna go in circles. Sometimes he wants to halt the circle. To become a straight line. To go to the end, the two of them together, to make it there, one point to the next.

And the fact that he realizes this, propels him to embrace it. He leans over and kisses her cheek goodbye, ignores how Clark’s hand tightens on her, and goes home to Zoe, who senses his bad mood and leaves him alone.

*

On Valentine’s Day they are smeared with chocolate, and Clark’s mouth licks at her breast, and his fingers smudge at the chocolate already on her skin. There are chocolate fingerprints on her thighs.

It should be sinful dark chocolate, but when they wash each other in the shower, she can only consider words like convenience and missing.

Harvey’s kiss still burns on her cheek.

*

Mike comes to the firm sick, a fever wracking him along with a cough.

Rachel emails Donna her concern (she’s still not talking to Mike, but love is love), and Donna goes to check on him during a quick break.

He stares up at her with glassy eyes, and she can tell just by looking at him that he’s burning up.

“Come with me,” Donna demands, and takes him straight into Harvey’s office.

“You overworked him,” Donna accuses.

Harvey takes in his associate who has struggled to and finally collapsed on the sofa. “What the hell, Mike?”

The boy shrugs. “I guess I just haven’t been sleeping that well. I had to make up all that work from last month.”

Donna sits next to him and places a cool hand on his forehead. She finds herself stroking his hair. She is supposed to be on Rachel’s side, to see Mike as the enemy, but she can’t, when the poor kid is so sick and hot and guilty. Mike leans in to her.

“I threw up this morning,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. “You might not want to sit so close.”

“You need to go home, Mike,” Donna says softly. Harvey is still watching the two of them, and he slowly begins to nod.

“Yes,” Harvey says, “you can do the work later. I won’t have you throwing up at your desk. I’m not that bad of a boss.”

Mike tries to crack a smile, but is still half-collapsed on Donna’s shoulder.

“I’m going to get Ray to pick up some soup for you too,” Donna tells him. “You need to rest. Lots of fluids.” She pauses, considers, then: “Do you need me to come over after work?”

“Nah,” Mike mumbles, the sleep evident in his voice. “I can take care of myself.”

There’s silence, and then an, “I’m sorry, Harvey.”

Harvey stiffens and then forces himself forward so that he’s right in front of Mike. “Look, kid, all I want is for you to get better. No apologies. You get sick.”

“But the work—I’m just—I’m not doing my job right. I know Jessica’s pissed, and I’ve gotta get my act together…”

“You’re doing your job fine, Mike. Get better. I’ll call you later.”

“Alright, kiddo,” Donna says, pulling him to his feet and ending the associate’s pity party. “Go get your things, I just texted Ray. He’ll be here soon.”

Mike grins, and he’s really no longer lucid.

“I love you guys,” he says. “You’re like my parents sometimes.”

Donna freezes. She knows that Mike was raised by his grandmother, that for him to compare her and Harvey to his dead parents means something. That he must really see them as a twosome, a team, a pair, parents.

The thought terrifies her and makes her feel warm—to be the half of a real pair with Harvey. Not just the obvious friendship that they have, but to be parents. Two halves that create a whole making and raising a life.

“Go on,” she whispers to Mike, but remains in the doorway, watching Harvey.

Harvey licks his bottom lip uncertainly and looks back until the phone at her desk rings, and they’re back to work, no longer surrogate parents, two halves of a whole, but Donna and Harvey the executive assistant and her legal extraordinaire.

*

It’s a conversation that has to happen, but Donna isn’t sure she ever really wanted it to happen.

She’s staring out the window of his office, watching lights turn off the buildings across, when he begins to speak.

“Zoe thinks there’s something going on between us.”

“Well, she was at that mock trial last year,” Donna says, still watching the lights. “And everyone thought it after that little stunt that Louis played, so I guess I don’t blame her. Guess you should assure her that there isn’t though.”

“I tried,” Harvey says, and she can hear him pouring scotch behind her. “She says I just don’t get it yet.”

“Harvey, I am not in love with you, and I don’t want to keep having this conversation with you!” She whirls around finally, only to see him extending a tumbler of scotch, which she snatches up and downs.

“Easy,” he says. “That’s good stuff, you know.”

“Harvey.”

“It just got me thinking.” He straightens his tie, checks his sleeves. He is nervous. “It got me thinking—what would have to change for us to do this?”

She moves away from the window and goes towards his record collection. Her fingers touch the spines of the record holders. Her mouth is pursed.

“I don’t know, Harvey. I just—this is us, and we can’t go back to this if we made a move.”

“We went back once,” he says, spreading his hands out wide. “I kissed you and we could still work together.”

“Not in the way that used to work together! I—God, Harvey I can’t even touch you by accident anymore. It just feels so—I’m not innocent anymore about us. I know what we could be, all because of that goddamned kiss and I can’t have us change anymore than it already has because I don’t want to be apart from you, Harvey, I just don’t.”

He touches her hands then, his fingers linking in hers. His thumbs stroke her knuckles.

“How does that feel, Donna?”

She pulls him into a hug; their bodies together feel like a sunrise.

“I can’t,” she says. 


	2. March, April

_March_

It comes in like a lion, Donna reminds herself, as she stares into Harvey’s office from her place at her desk. They might as well have slept together; the conversation about moving forward in their relationship caused them to move just as far apart. She can barely stand next to him, and he can’t look into her eyes.

Besides that, Zoe and him still have clandestine meetings, and Donna has scheduled one or two dinner dates for them too, despite her better judgment and her past conversation with him. Things are not going well, and every so often she feels sick to her stomach when she thinks about her and Harvey and Harvey and Zoe and Donna and Clark.

*

He doesn’t like to let his birthday be a big deal. It’s usually a small smile from Donna, and a wink, that lets him know that she remembers. Sometimes he and Jessica will go out to lunch, depending on their schedules, and he might even find a pair of game tickets or a new record on his desk. After a good day of work (he always does his best work on his birthday, because it sets precedent for the year), he’ll take a spin in a car that he’s been wanting to try out, and he’ll have a date and bring a woman into his bed and unwrap her and kiss her and have amazing sex. It’s not like he doesn’t celebrate his birthday. It’s just that he doesn’t like to let anyone but the select few know.

But this year, it’s a tense birthday, filled with tense negotiations. There is no lunch. There is a card with a IOU for his gift this year. He still gets a small smile from Donna, but no wink, and this is probably because things have been tense between them too (he’s sort of waiting for the day that Donna says that she’s done at this point, because everything else is falling apart, so why wouldn’t they, but of course, he hopes that will never happen). He doesn’t schedule a date, even though Zoe keeps pushing him, because he’s not up to great sex, he just wants a scotch and some TV and some relaxation.

At five to 7 PM, he starts packing his things. Normally he would stay later, particularly because they are still building the firm up, and failing a little bit, and he wants the name change to be Pearson Specter, and so he will be there for the firm at every moment he has to spare. But it’s his birthday, and he just wants some goddamned rest.

“Hey,” he hears, while turns around to pack some papers into his briefcase.

It’s Donna, looking nervous.

“Hi,” he says. “Everything alright?”

“Look, I just wanted to say happy birthday. I know it’s been a busy day, but” she spreads her hands out helplessly, “I hope it wasn’t all bad.”

“We signed a contract,” he says, sitting back in his chair, “so that was a good present.”

She bites her lip, and it’s so unlike her. He feels a strange wave of worry in the pit of his stomach—this is the moment, he thinks, the moment when she is going to leave. And how terrible of her to leave it for his birthday. He hates her a little bit then, because how can she leave him of her own accord?

“Harvey, I was just wondering—did you want me to make reservations for you and Zoe tonight? I know I told you I didn’t want to deal with your personal life, but I can make an exception.” She smiles awkwardly. “I already checked a couple places and they’ll take a late reservation, and I’m sure Zoe is free on your birthday…”

The lightness he feels overwhelms him, and he can’t help but rise to his feet and shake his head.

“No. No, thanks. But hey, are you free tonight?”

She stills. “Me?”

“Yeah. I want to spend my birthday was a friendly face.”

“Harvey, Zoe—”

“Is busy tonight,” he lies. “She won’t be coming over.” This isn’t a lie. His girlfriend is, thankfully, too good to drop in unexpectedly.

Donna straightens immediately, puts on a friendly tone, and removes all traces of discomfort, just like he knew she would.

“Okay. I’ll get take out and meet you at your apartment? We watching reruns?”

“You know me well, Paulsen.”

“Did you ever doubt that?”

Is it that easy, he wonders, to put what happened behind them? And if so, why haven’t they done it yet. Because it isn’t that easy, it’s just the two of them wanting so badly to be okay. They’ll put on any façade to make it happen.

An hour later she’s ringing his doorbell, arms laden with Pad Thai, fried bean curd, and red wine. She also has a couple of DVDs, which he suspects are _Die Hard_ and _Pretty Woman_.

They end up watching _Seinfeld_ though, and laughing at the jokes in sync. It’s easy, strangely so, and it doesn’t feel like they’re pretending anymore. They’re just being them, putting the past behind them. Although he catches himself staring at her lips, her hair, her eyes, putting his hand a little too close to her thigh. He can’t erase what he wants, even if he’s not particularly sure if it’s just sex or something more.

It’s around 11 when he gets the call.

“Happy birthday, Harvey,” Jessica says.

“Thanks, but—”

“I just fired Louis,” she continues. “Guess that’s your birthday gift. Not exactly a gift for the firm.”

She hangs up. He sets the phone down and stares at Donna in disbelief.

*

Nine hours later he sits in Jessica’s office. She hasn’t slept, and his rest was fitful.

Donna had forced him to finish the movie with her because there was nothing for him to do now that Jessica wasn’t picking up the phone. He and Donna cleaned up, drained the last of the wine, and then she ducked out, asking him to please get some rest. She had gripped his forearm though, a tense gesture of support, before walking out the door.

All night he thought of Louis, fired, and the future of the firm and the future of those at the firm that he cares about.

“Talk to me,” he says, trying to discern something in her stoic expression. “Jessica, come on.”

She unfolds her hands. It’s like the beginning of ice cracking, and soon the whole thing melts down, and she’s staring at him helplessly.

“Bennett,” she says. “She came to me yesterday with information—detailed information all well laid out and certified—that I couldn’t ignore.” She closes her eyes. “Louis had some bad dealings years ago.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough that if this information came out people and the partners would be questioning our hiring practices and Louis would certainly lose all of his clients. Even though it didn’t relate specifically to Louis’ practices, it certainly put into question his ethics.”

“Can we be a little specific here?”

She stands abruptly, all the power back in her form. She cuts an imposing figure.

“Do you think I’m going to tell you specifics, Harvey? About a man you hate? Who knows where you’re going to run your mouth off to.”

He stands too, and he knows that he cuts just an imposing figure.

“Is this really going to be a trust issue between us? I can’t stand Louis! Once I might have respected him, now, nothing! But I will not put the integrity of this firm on the line just badmouth Louis, goddammit! And you should know that.”

He slams his hand down on the desk to make his point.

“He was assisting in certain illegal financial dealings with high ranking employees in the business sector.”

“You’re kidding me.” Harvey lowers himself back into his seat. “That’s ridiculous. Louis? And illegal finances? You know he’s straight. He prides himself on it.”

“The evidence is overwhelming,” Jessica says as she seats herself too.

“This is ridiculous. Couldn’t you just cut a deal? Make a bargain?”

She shakes her head. “Katherine Bennett was not looking to be paid off or intimidated. She was going to take this information to the partners and the public if I didn’t fire him.”

“We need Louis. He has clients. He’s the best in financial law. We can’t just lose a figure like that!”

“We just did, Harvey.”

Harvey studies her desk, takes note of the stacks of her paper, her laptop, the pens (all sensible black or blue). She is always well organized, but this impeccable order to her desk is out of the ordinary. She is worried, she has been arranging and rearranging.

“What is going on, Jessica?”

“She threatened us as a firm, Harvey. Said she was going to take out every less than saintly person in the whole firm.”

“That’s not her job.”

“No. It isn’t. But I suspect she’s not exactly working with the DA’s blessing.”

Harvey tugs at his sleeve. “And you believe her? That she can find out something on all of us and get you to kick us out onto the streets?”

Jessica quirks a wry eyebrow. “How many enemies do we have, Harvey? I don’t believe that Katherine Bennett is working on her own. And that is why I am worried.”

“A systematic dismantling of the firm by one of our enemies?”

“Sounds about right.”

“Sounds exciting.”

She lets a small smile break through, and he’s glad that they can at least bring some levity into the situation without cracking under pressure.

“Don’t get cocky on me, Harvey.”

They sit in silence again, the early Manhattan light spilling through his windows. He has a meeting at 9. Donna will be knocking to remind him of the time soon. He wonders if Mike has picked up the work from her office—

“Mike,” he breathes suddenly. “Jessica, if she found out things about Louis, she will find out things about Mike. And you know he hasn’t had the best of pasts.”

“Yes,” she lays her palms on the desk, “I hope that his past isn’t uncovered. Unfortunately, I think it is a grave possibility that Bennett will go after him, because of his closeness to you.”

“That’s it?” He stares at her in disbelief—his mentor, who has always watched him with a steady eye but given him all her care and trust. “That kid has done so much for this firm, and you’re just going to throw him to the dogs?”

“I thank him for all that he has done, but I cannot keep covering his ass, Harvey! I have a whole firm to think about, not just one associate, no matter how bright he is.”

“It is not that easy,” Harvey growls through gritted teeth. “I take care of my own, Jessica. I will always come back for them, like I did for Donna, like I’ve done for you, like I’ve done for that kid.”

“So you care,” she goads.

“No. I hold up my end of bargains.”

“Loyalty isn’t a bargain, Harvey.”

“How isn’t it? I give you my loyalty for yours. It seems like you can’t keep your end of the bargain though.”

“I never made a bargain of loyalty with your associate.”

“But you made one with me.”

It’s in that moment that Donna appears at Jessica’s door, just a short knock to inform him of the time before she turns away, knowing that the conversation is important, and that the client can wait.

Harvey stands, but continues to glower at his boss. “We’ll work together because I’m loyal to you and because I care about this firm. And I’m worried about Katherine Bennett. But don’t you forget—you’ve broken my trust, Jessica.”

*

She finds him in the file room. He stands against one of the shelves, head tipped back, tie askew.

“Harvey,” she says.

He looks up, eyes troubled. The creases in his face seem to have doubled. He is handsome still (he will always be handsome to her), but he is old, tired.

“Harvey,” she says again, and reaches a hand out to him. “Are you—are you okay?”

He grabs her hand, and her heart jumps to her throat because they don’t this. He pulls her to him. Her skirt swishes against his leg, and she’s in his arms, his face pressed into the curve of her neck, his hands trembling on her back. She’s stroking his shoulder softly, letting him hold her closer and closer. His breath blows gently into her skin.

She wonders if he can smell her lotion or her perfume or the faint scent of morning coffee on her skin.

They part for just a moment, and stare into each other’s face, forgetting that they are in a file room, and she cups his cheek, and then he slowly repositions so that he is again hidden in the crooks of her body. He hides, but not behind a façade.

He tells her the whole story later. In the file room they only embrace.

*

On a Friday they end up at a bar together after work. She’s been gentle with him since he held her in the file room, and he, always the catalyst, keeps trying to make moves forward. She wonders how it has become him who keeps trying to define and push their relationship, when he has always been one to prefer their status quo, and she wonders if maybe he’s finally seeing things that she has known for years.

He orders shots immediately, and she has a feeling she’ll have a bad hangover the next morning. But it’s worth it for the way he watches her lap at the salt on her skin. The way he watches her suck on limes.

It’s utterly unsurprising that they end up pressed to each other, first because the bar grows crowded and second because they are drunk within an hour. She presses into his arm, and his lawyer-look fades, and something sweet and friendly and warm replaces it.

That night she learns that he likes her hair. His fingers keep twisting the ends, moving it out of her face.

That night she learns that he can be jealous. When men close in, ready to buy her a drink, Harvey calls for the bartender immediately and buys her more so that he can claim her, in the drunk language, to be his companion. His glare speaks to her.

That night she learns that he will not have sex in the bar bathroom with her, but that he will almost have it, desperate with need, in the back of Ray’s car.

When she suggests a joint trip to the ladies room to get relieve the pressure (she is very drunk and does not say these things, but she sees the way his pants have tented at her touch, and she knows the way her thighs to her core are burning, and she knows how to suggest with the curve of her lips, the press of breasts, the turn of her head), he shakes his head and says that it’s time to call Ray and that he can drop her off at home.

But in the car, she places her hand on his thigh, and he charges at her, lips sucking at her pulse point, hands groping all the curves that she has wanted him to warm with his hands for years.

He kisses her for a long time, his tongue tasting all the crevices of her mouth. She feels bruised and fully wanted by the time he finishes, by the time he finally, finally starts to unbutton her blouse and sneak his fingers under the edges of light blue bra.

She’s almost glad that she’s wearing a skirt, that she can straddle him, and move her matching panties to one side and sink on top of him, but he stops her, and whispers, “I’m taking you home.”

She’s panting, but she manages to protest: “Harvey, I’m not—ending this—here.”

He reaches down and fingers her clit, and she can’t help but groan. “You think I’d end this here? When we’re finally going to do this?” He sucks on her ear, and it’s hot and uncomfortable and sexy. “I want you spread out in my bed, that’s all.”

She laughs a little, though it’s breathy, because of course he’s right. That one other time they’d only kissed and he’d stopped it, but there was that look in his eyes that said if they went any further he wouldn’t think of anything other than plain old ravishing her. He won’t end it, he’ll just have it on his own terms.

And when they finally make it back to his apartment, he basically pushes her into his bedroom, closing the door with his foot. She’s undressed in moments, and he’s kissing her breasts, teasing her with his fingers, beginning to unzip himself.

This is where they can go. They can give themselves this much. They have to, because the need has grown in infinite leaps, and they can’t say the words yet. All the hidings, pretending things are fine, won’t suffice any longer.

With one last kiss to her neck, he pushes inside of her, and its all she can do to keep herself from crying out his name, until he pushes in again harder, and she hears him grunt, and she ends up not only crying out his name but moaning it again and again. He clutches at her, finally bracing his hands on either side of her body, and she can see the wrinkles in the sheets he makes if she turns her head right, but eventually her vision blurs, and it’s them and they’re primal.

*

He wakes up with Donna in his arms, the sunlight glinting on her hair.

For a moment he isn’t sure what to do. He traces the outline of her collarbone with his finger and then rises to make coffee.

In the kitchen, he considers his options—but he has nothing but one. He can’t lose her, can’t not have her in his life, because she is his best friend and confidant, and he’s wanted her for so long anyway. This was their second chance, and they are inevitable.

They don’t speak about it, even when he hands her a mug of coffee, and touches her collarbone again. But they keep coming back to each other, the kisses and touches frequent.

They take it as it goes.

*

Maybe it’s always been hardship that has brought them together. Those moments when they can pull together and fight together. The moments where they can push the world out and plan together and hit the ground running.

They are rough, tense, needy. They are the pair that gets things done, even if they take the hard way just for the challenge.

Sometimes she wonders why she has waited so long for this, for this angry passion, when she could have devotion and heartsick men dying for her every whim. She is beautiful, and they would trail her; she is smart, and they would desire her. And she doesn’t just want to climb on top of him and take him (although she enjoys that too), she wants all of him, and she thinks maybe she has inadvertently admitted so to him before. But they are not at that point, she says to herself.

She has no answers, only that there is a feeling in her that feels unutterable, unnameable, and she is glad when she touches him and lets herself keep touching because she can finally, finally put that feeling to use.

*

“More, Harvey,” becomes their mantra in the next few weeks.

She’s not sure why she wants it so hard. She’s never been a woman for only rough sex. She likes games, and she likes to feel it, but with him, it’s like if he doesn’t hit her deep enough, fill her perfectly, it won’t be enough. She wants to feel like an extension of him.

If she can’t have words or sentiments, she can have this.

He obliges.

*

It never goes out like a lamb, but that doesn’t mean she begrudges the end of March. It just means that Harvey is a lion in bed.

_April_

Harvey likes spring, the rain in the air, the fresh dirt smell in Central Park, the sun comes back, baseball season, the city unfreezes, outdoor brunch. He rarely thinks of it as new beginnings (that kind of thinking is overly hopeful, and always leads to disappointment), but somehow this spring seems significant to him.

*

They still play their little games with each other, although this time the banter isn’t just verbal—it’s in their beds, and it’s hot and sticky and fantastic. Some nights it’s teasing, but some nights it is pure competition. The problem is when it makes it into the workplace, rather than just in their respective bedrooms.

She sends him dirty little texts, prompting him to look up and watch her lick her lips and unbutton her blouse just slightly. He’s always amazed that she manages to do so when no one is passing by, and her winks and joking grins get him just as much as her sexuality does.

Sometimes the texts are more explicit: I’m wet for you, I want you to touch me the way you did last night. These are often the ones that prompt him to stand, put his work to the side, and take her in the private nooks and crannies of the office.

They don’t even undress all the way on these days; they remove only what is necessary and push and touch and whisper into each others shoulders.

But the danger of this, they soon learn, are the prying ears and eyes and the gossips and the jealous who decide to go to the boss and tell on the senior partner and his executive assistant. Jessica, perhaps feeling that she has no choice, eventually calls him in to her office.

“Harvey,” she says, and things are still tense, so even his name sounds awkward in her mouth, “I really don’t want to have this conversation with you, but you leave me no choice.”

He nods coldly.

“Inter-employee relationships are frowned on at Pearson Hardman, and it’s come to my attention that you are engaging in one.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care, Harvey. I really could care less. But I cannot hear about it! I cannot see it! You are her superior, start acting like it!”

“No,” he says. “I’m not going to act like her goddamned superior, Jessica. We’ve always been equals and I’m not pulling rank on her now.”

She rises from her chair, circles him predatorily. “Do what you want, Harvey, but I do not want to have to fire Donna Paulsen again.” She watches the blow sink in and then continues. “And might I remind you that someone is trying to pull this firm apart? Sink it, member by member? Do you think your little love affair would go unnoticed? She will be next, after your associate.”

“Why does it sound like you’re threatening me, Jessica?”

She laughs, and it’s not friendly. “Do you seriously believe I could be behind Louis’ firing? That I want to destroy my own firm?”

“No,” Harvey says, “but I do wonder if this is your paranoia speaking. Because we haven’t heard anything from Bennett in a month. Don’t you think she’d be all over everything by now?” He steps forward, making her adjust her circular path. “Everyone has secrets, Jessica. If Katherine Bennett were working on destroying us, it would have happened by now and she would have succeeded.”

Jessica shakes her head. “Louis was a warning shot. A loud, clear warning shot, but a warning nonetheless. It is coming, Harvey. And this your warning, from me.”

He can’t help but consider the consequences of his actions once again, but there’s no turning back. They are inevitable.

*

Even their carnal desires seem to have a limit, and at some point instead of just wanting, they start giving to each other, and Donna starts to think, this is something, this could be something. And there is Zoe, and she puts it out of mind. And there is romance, and she pretends not to notice it.

*

One Saturday they don’t just stay in, exploring each other. He wakes her early and demands that they go for a run, that it’s a beautiful day and that the park will smell great, and she’ll enjoy it and then they can go out for brunch.

Half an hour later Donna, banana in stomach, laces up her shoes, and pulls at her shorts. He smiles appreciatively and tweaks her ponytail.

They run in sync, and he is reminded of that day at yoga, when he watched sweat run around her freckles. Today, he thinks, he can trace those patterns with his tongue. He can kiss her sweat and skin and freckles, and the thoughts slow him down until she turns, a competitive joy on her face, and he runs faster, overtaking her. They play that game, distracting and then passing each other until she starts to giggle, and can’t run anymore.

They collapse on a bench with laughter, holding each other up.

“I’ll take you boxing next time,” he promises. “There’ll be no laughing then.”

“Sure, Harvey.”

He kisses her in broad daylight, and he could care less if Jessica walked by now, because she tastes of mint and sweat and sun.

He holds her hand at brunch.

He showers with her.

He reads the newspaper in her bed.

He kisses her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, and she curls up near him.

*

On April 17th, it’s their anniversary—a workplace anniversary, the day they decided to leave Cameron together.

They both know the date, but like his birthday, the day rarely enjoys a large celebration. But a few days before, when he watches her through the glass of his office, as he usually finds himself doing, he thinks perhaps he’d like to actually take her out.

He decides on _Rigoletto_ that Friday, at the Met, because she loves Hugo and apparently the opera has basis in the author’s work, and he’s quite sure that Verdi is a good composer. When he drops the tickets on her desk, she looks confused, and then a small smile grows on her lips and she nods.

“I also thought you’d rather buy your own dress,” he suggests. “I know you do anyway, but take my card. Get whatever you want.”

She does appreciate this, he can tell, because Donna wants what Donna wants and no one will ever be able to perfectly understand her whims. It is better to let organized, intelligent, and ever correct Donna pick her own outfit—it will make her happy, and that’s what he wants.

He isn’t disappointed when he comes to pick her up. She wears a long dark blue dress, with intricate silver beading. It flows around her legs when she walks, and before she puts her wrap on, he gets to appreciate her creamy shoulders. She looks royal, haughty, but so beautiful.

And she loves it, the opera. She fits in at the opera perfectly, except her smile is a little too wide and excited as she takes in the lights and the stage. She weeps at the melodrama, claps at the ends of arias, and gushes over the costuming and staging.

“Thank you,” she says suddenly, in the middle of a sentence. “Harvey, I’ve never seen Rigoletto and it’s just so beautiful. Thank you, thank you.”

He tightens her hold on her hand.

“Are you having fun?” she asks a little tentatively.

He’s not lying when he explains that while he would prefer a baseball game, it’s certainly not bad, and the music is beautiful.

“Almost as good as Dad’s records,” he says, winking, and she laughs, knowing that nothing in the world could be as good to him as his father’s records, and he appreciates that she gets that.

They sit by the fountain after the show, despite the thinning crowds. The rest of the crowd is going home, but he wants to enjoy the night with her a little longer.

She fiddles with her hair, and lets it tumble down to her shoulders after a moment. He can smell her shampoo. He watches the soft curve of her face in the night, and he wants to trace all the lines of her body, that body that has been his for only a month but feels like it has been his for eternity.

That night, she says, harder, Harvey, and he denies her.

He brushes the hair from her face, his thumb etching out a pattern on her cheek until it travels to her lips, soft and pliant under his touch. He removes her clothes, traces the lines he saw at the fountain. He kisses the soft nubs of her nipples, and tastes the places that he wants to enjoy.

She begs him, but he denies her, as he worships her knees and her elbows, and her hipbones—the places that he always forgets to give attention to.

“Harvey,” she says finally, chastising, and he obliges, but he slides into her and breathes her name on her skin again and again until he feels that he has marked her with her own name. And then he says, mine, but he hopes she doesn’t hear that.

Was that making love, he wants to ask afterwards, because she stopped crying out for it to be harder and just mumbled his name again and again, little tears slipping down her cheeks, and his hand was pressed to the left side of her chest the whole time.

*

She and Harvey settle into strange routines, seeing each other on most Friday nights that bleed into Saturday mornings that sometimes even make it into Saturday nights. But she keeps herself in check, and every so often refuses Harvey’s invitation into his bed.

He rarely asks why, but the one time he does, she’s ashamed to explain that she already committed to a night out with Clark.

He says nothing for a moment, stares at her in the doorway of his office, and then beckons her closer.

“Donna,” he says, “I’m not doing this with you if you’re still with him.”

It comes to her like a flood, understanding his qualms about sleeping with a woman with a boyfriend. His mother, her naked body in bed with a man other than Harvey’s father must stand out in his mind, but Donna wants to explain that Clark isn’t her boyfriend and that she certainly hasn’t made a vow of love to him. It’s just that she holds on to Clark because she’s afraid of giving it all up to Harvey and then having nothing left when he destroys her. Because a part of her is sure that nothing will ever last between them, that it would be a fantasy to believe in their happy ending.

Instead, she says, “What about Zoe? Let’s not be hypocrites here, Harvey.”

“I finished it with her weeks ago.”

“You never told me that.”

He fingers the wood of his desk and shakes his head. “I didn’t realize that you would expect me to have both of you.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re Harvey, king of women. Of course I expect you to always keep some back-ups in your pocket.”

He doesn’t say anything, and she knows it’s a lawyer-trick, designed to get her mind running and doubting, but it works, because she drops down on his couch, and runs her fingers through her hair, and holds back tears (real tears) because she doesn’t want to fight with him or goad him, she just wants it to be easy, and this time it’s her keeping them from that.

His knee appears at her knee, finally, and after a large gulping breath she looks up at him.

“I don’t want us to be cheating,” he says.

On who, she wonders, others or each other? She doesn’t voice this; she only nods.

“It’s not fair,” he continues, “so let’s just put a stop to it.”

“Okay,” she says.

But she wonders about the arrangement, the pseudo-fidelity, when they haven’t used any words to cement themselves in each other. It’s only the touch that links them, and the age old friendship that keeps them grinning at each other. It isn’t that she wants to possess him and suffocate him, she just wants to know who they are together, to rewrite all the lines so that she can understand this new Donna and Harvey. She wonders, and the worry rarely wanes, and she keeps Clark’s number in her contacts, though she never calls.

*

Her skin is like tulip petals.

He tastes her again and again, spring drifting in the window, still chilly but he likes it.

Her kisses on his shoulder are cold, her lips cold from the chill, and it feels like tiny moonbeams dancing. Her fluttering eyelashes are supernovas, exploding on him. She is marble and white in the dark of his room. She is the moon. He forgets about Earth. He travels to the moon.


	3. May, June

_May_

This is how the month starts: on weekends she rubs her palm along his stubble, they discover they like Ethiopian food, he laughs at her threadbare pajamas, they read on a park bench together.

Sometimes they wish they had let the other in earlier, but they know that it wouldn’t have been the same—that they had to get to that point in the journey before they allow it, but still, it is sad to know that they were so close, only a desk apart really, and that it took so long.

They forget to ready themselves for apocalypses. They forget themselves in each other, and they are surprised at how easy this is to do. They never speak about it though, that is the rule, for some unspoken reason.

*

The second week of May, Jessica calls Harvey into her office. When he looks at her, he knows immediately that it is time to put arguments aside, because something has happened. Regardless, he is surprised when Jessica steps aside and Scottie is sitting on her couch, a small smirk on her lips, her legs crossed so that her skirt rises.

“Scottie,” he says. “How are you?”

She doesn’t rise, only inclines her head. “Pleased to see me, Harvey?”

“You only ever bring trouble, so no, not really.”

Jessica intervenes then, with tiny cough, but she doesn’t hold back either. “Unfortunately, Ms. Scott has indeed brought us trouble again.”

“Well, I can’t help that Pearson Hardman always seems be chafing one of my clients,” Scottie replies.

“And who,” Harvey says, taking a seat, “is the client this time?”

“Just someone named Daniel Hardman.”

He resists shooting to his feet, but he can’t find the tightening of his lips and fists. Jessica sends him a warning look, so he relaxes his spine too. But he can see the taut lines of her face, and he realizes immediately why they need to put their differences behind them: Hardman is coming and his reinforcements are dangerous.

“So what exactly does Mr. Hardman believe he will get out of a suit?” Jessica asks, midway between polite and aggravated.

Scottie nods rather amiably, but there’s a dangerous look in her eyes. “Mr. Hardman believes that the proceedings leading to his ousting from the firm were illegal, and wants to pursue the issue. Namely, the drug abuse in this firm and a certain affidavit that was allegedly signed by Lawrence Kemp, who has repeatedly explained to us that he never signed anything. It’s all very suspicious, and we believe that in such circumstances, the partners’ vote was manipulated against Mr. Hardman unfairly. And the court will most likely agree with us. And you will lose your credibility. Unless of course we can come to settlement.”

“No,” Jessica says immediately. “He’s not taking any power in this firm back.”

“Jessica—” Harvey begins. “We are not letting him back in, Harvey.”

Harvey shakes his head, considering, and then smiles broadly at Scottie. “I just don’t think we should antagonize opposing counsel so much. I’m sure we can work out a solution, right, Scottie?”

Scottie raises an eyebrow. On the other side of him, Jessica does the same thing. Harvey suppresses a tiny smile.

“I’m sure you’re right, Harvey,” Scottie smirks.

“Well, Ms. Scott, if you’d leave the appropriate paperwork with me to look over, I would appreciate it,” Jessica says. “And then I think Harvey and I will take a few minutes to talk in private.”

Scottie doesn’t fight her dismissal. She simply stands, leaves a folder on Jessica’s desk, and, with swaying hips, leaves the room. Harvey barely watches her leave, focused more on Jessica and their future.

“She has a case,” Jessica says immediately.

“You haven’t even looked at what she gave you.”

“You saw the way she walked out of here. No fight, Harvey. Because she’s confident. She’s in my office and she’s the one with the power. Goddammit. We’re getting hit by both sides here, with Louis gone thanks to Bennett and now Hardman.”

He steps forward slightly, a gesture of solidarity. “Alright, so we’re in deep shit. But we can figure this out. Bennett hasn’t been around here for weeks. She doesn’t have anything, so we need to focus on Scottie and whatever she’s got up her sleeve. What’s our next move?”

Jessica sits in her desk chair, fingers of one hand pressed to her temple, the other hand busy flipping through Scottie’s file. The weakness in her shoulders gives her away. It also gives Harvey a sick feeling in his stomach—never have they been in such a dire situation. Finally she looks up at him.

“How did Mike get that affidavit if Lawrence Kemp didn’t sign it? Tell me the truth, Harvey.”

“He signed his own name to it,” Harvey explains in a guilty undertone. “It wasn’t illegal—but Scottie’s right, it was manipulation, and it doesn’t look good.”

She sighs heavily. “I hate you and your associate sometimes, Harvey.”

“Hey, it worked!” He drops his smile though, also understanding the magnitude of the situation. “Alright, so we made some mistakes. But we need to move forward.”

“Give me a day, Harvey, I need to look over this. I don’t think bullying anyone is going to get us our way this time. We need to prove that Hardman planted that memo in some way other than that affidavit.” She massages her forehead, and Harvey realizes exactly how long of a day, and probably week, it is now going to be. “Just stay out of trouble for a day, okay, Harvey.”

“Yeah, I got it,” he says.

*

Scottie is waiting for him in his office. He can see her tall form standing by his window through the glass of his office. Donna stares resolutely at her computer screen.

“Hi,” she says. “I let Scottie in there. She said it was important.”

He pauses, comes close to Donna’s desk, and then wonders if he is supposed to say something reassuring. But Donna looks back at her screen, and doesn’t acknowledge his presence any longer.

By the time he opens the office door, though, Scottie has turned, smiled, and moved close to him, her shoulder brushing his chest. She fingers his tie for a moment.

“Let’s walk,” she says, and for the first time, Harvey finds her predatory look discomforting.

But he follows her, keeping a slight distance. As they walk past Donna’s desk, he expects sharper typing or an angry glare, but Donna keeps her professional appearance, and all he can see is the side of her head as she focuses on something.

Somehow Scottie remembers where the file room is, and leads him there, where she pushes him against a wall and kisses him in great swallowing gulps. Her body curves into his immediately, and one of her legs comes up to curl around his. Somehow she already has buttons unbuttoned before he realizes what is happening.

“Scottie,” he says.

“Yeah,” she whispers hotly into his ear. “Seriously, Harvey what was all that shit in front of Jessica—about not antagonizing me? You know that’s how I like it.” She nips at his earlobe. “Angry.”

Then she hums appreciatively into his neck, rubs against his body hard, and starts kissing him again. He groans once because Scottie can kiss but realizes how wrong it tastes in his mouth, all that bitterness shooting through him. Lately, he realizes, he likes kisses that taste like a good orange, fresh and sweet. He likes Donna’s kisses.

Harvey pushes against Scottie’s shoulders, moving her away from his body.

“You’re married,” he says as soon as his mouth is free, though for once it isn’t exactly the reason that he pulls away—Dona is the reason, Donna’s kisses, and Donna’s embrace in this very file room, and God he can’t kiss Scottie (it’s the first time ever) and it confuses him.

“Come on,” she says. “It’s us. We can do this. It doesn’t matter.”

She leans forward, but he arms are there immediately, keeping her at bay.

“Are you bargaining with me?” she asks with a raised eyebrow. “Sex for some leeway on this case?”

“You’d never do that.” He stares off to the right. “Even if you would…we can’t do this.”

She reaches forward, unbuttons his collar, and finds the still-red mark on his skin, let over from Donna’s mouth the night before. She brushes her fingers over it, and he shies away from the manicured nails.

“Who is it?” she asks quietly.

“No one.”

She laughs sullenly, and he can almost see little tears in the corners of her eyes, but they disappear as soon as she ducks her head. “Can’t be no one, she obviously has you wrapped around her finger.”

He shrugs, aware still of her hands on him.

“It’s Donna,” she guesses quickly (number one in her class at Harvard, it’s her job to pick up on things). “She wasn’t happy to see me, and you stared at her twice before we got in here.”

He nods silently.

“You’re married,” he says, as if it’s an explanation.

“That’s why you started sleeping with her? You want me to believe that? You’d never put her in that position, Harvey. I know you. I know you two.”

She steps away from him, finally.

“You don’t know us,” he says.

“Everyone knows you two,” Scottie says, smiling. “Donna and Harvey, packaged pair. You know, if I had to lose out, I’d want it to be to her.”

“You’re married,” he protests, but he knows, deep down somewhere, that him and Scottie would never work, that they’re angry, harsh, and always on two different sides on an issue. But him and Donna are the better version of him and Scottie, bantering, laughing, watching each other’s back as much as possible. He knows that he has spent more time with Donna, has given her more ammunition against him (which she never uses), has fought with her because he wants her approval and her support, has always kept part of his heart away from others because it has belonged to her since the fateful night of their meeting at the DA’s office.

Scottie has slunk away from him now. She leans on the opposite wall, arms crossed, tapping her heeled foot.

“So how did it finally happen?” she asks.

“I’m not going to gossip with you about me and Donna.”

“You owe me this.”

“Seriously? You’re representing Daniel Hardman against me, I owe you nothing.”

She tilts her head. “You’d do the same if our roles were reversed. A win against Pearson Hardman helps me out. A lot. Doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, Harvey.”

He sighs, and tries to understand how it happened. It just wasn’t the same after she left, he thinks. And once she came back, he couldn’t be so far from her, and at some point they started to erase their line because it seemed impractical (they’re not just boss and assistant, how can they delineate themselves at all), and then after that it never stopped evolving until it became what they are now.

It became a life—there is a life here, he thinks.

Later, when he returns to his office, he tries to catch Donna’s eye, but she’s on the phone, and it seems important, because she is scribbling on a notepad while listening intently. He wants to tell her about the life, they life that they might have, but he can’t explain having an epiphany while he was kissing Scottie and he certainly can’t be sure what Donna’s reaction will even be, and he’s not sure how much of a life she wants at all, so he stays silent, and just goes back to work.

*

She meets Louis in front of her apartment building right after work, uncomfortable as she is with the situation. Louis and her hadn’t reconciled after his defection to Hardman’s side, regardless of Louis’ many attempts to apologize and make it clear that he was getting his loyalties back in order.

He looks fine, though, still shaven and dressed well if more casually than usual. He smiles at her widely, seems to consider a hug, and then decides on a handshake.

“How are you, Louis?” she asks, sympathizing with his fired state.

“I’m alright,” he says. “I’m almost glad to be out of there before Pearson Hardman really gets attacked.”

She leans against the brick of her building and nods. “What do you know?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Louis Litt.”

“Okay, I have some speculations, but they’re not worth sharing at this point.”

“Share them,” she commands, and fixes him with the look that always frightened him in the law firm. It doesn’t disappoint.

“Cameron Dennis,” he says. “I think he’s going to come see you.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s going to come see you.”

Donna shakes her head, and shifts her purse to her other arm. “Louis, Cameron Dennis is off the map. Jessica took care of that. I took care of that.”

He shrugs, and his lack of argument worries her. “I just want to give you this—my tape recorder.” He smiles bashfully. “You could always buy one but I figure you could use this one for old time’s sake.”

She is growing irritated—Scottie’s visit coupled with Louis’ evasiveness isn’t lifting her mood after a long day at work. Plus, her light sweater isn’t enough for the chilly evening, and all she wants at this point is white wine and a good book.

“What am I supposed to use this for?” she asks, holding out her hand expectantly.

He shrinks into himself a little, and she has the sudden urge to apologize, but can’t bring herself to make the moment any more awkward than it already is.

“I think you’ll find a use for it,” he says.

“Okay.” She pushes it into her bag. “Thank you, Louis.”

“Any help to the firm, right?”

She realizes then that she is Louis Litt’s hope—that if she can use the tape recorder to find evidence for something and help the firm out, he might be able to come back. She tries to keep her smile from turning pitiful. He misses his job.

“I’ll let Jessica know if this helps at all,” Donna says.

He smiles gratefully, tells her, pleasantly, to have a nice night. They part ways strangely; she empathizes with him as much as she dislikes him now, and because of it, she keeps the tape recorder in her bag at all times. '

*

For days Donna and Harvey barely speak except for important work matters. He’s out of the office half the time, trying to convince witnesses to implicate Daniel Hardman, and his means of communication with Donna is generally over text.

When he finally shows up at her door on Friday night, tequila in one hand, chocolate in the other, the strain between them is palpable.

“Hey,” he says, and leans down to kiss her hungrily, despite his full hands. “God, it’s been too long.”

“Yeah,” she says noncommittally, and moves aside to let him in the apartment.

He loves Donna’s apartment. It’s warm, with its plushy couch and overgrown plants, but it’s clean in its colors: greens and blues that calm him. He sinks into the couch, and waits for her to join him, but she’s off getting glasses for the alcohol, a piece of chocolate in her mouth.

“Come here,” he calls, “I want to say ‘hi’ properly.”

She cocks her head at him. “You did already.”

“Donna,” he groans.

“I heard you and Scottie were in the file room, huh?”

“How do you even know that?”

She flicks at her fingernail, but he can see the irritation in her shoulders and the downward tilt of her chin. “Network of secretaries. You forgot so fast?”

He wonders if this is the moment to mention how much he has realized about him and Donna and how much he doesn’t want to end. How much he fears that all of this is one big I love you.

“I didn’t forget,” he says instead. “And it was business talk.”

“Just seems a bit unfair,” she says, “to dump Zoe like that and then pick Scottie up.”

“She’s married,” he says, except this is the wrong refrain to keep chanting to everyone. There is something else he should be saying, something that is the whole truth.

“Yeah but it’s you and Scottie. I’m not stupid you know.”

He stands, walks to her, and finds her waist with his palm. His brings his mouth to her neck, to the spot that she can never resist, and immediately feels her relax against his body.

“Sometimes you can be a little ridiculous.” She swats his hand away. “Harvey Specter! I’m the only one keeping you in that damn senior partner office, you know.”

“Nah,” he says, drawing her in again, “that’s Mike.”

But he silences her protests with kisses up her neck, ending with his mouth on her ear, while his hands slide under her blouse and tease enough that her hips buck.

He knows he should set her straight, make the Donna and Harvey situation clear, but once she’s in his arms, he feels himself grow hard, feels her grow impatient, and forgets that such a conversation ever needs to be had. Besides, he decides, she can’t be that angry if her kisses are any indication of her feelings.

He pushes her against her wall and shoves her skirt out of the way. He caresses her thighs—they’re firm and pale, and his fingers make tiny little indentations as they move across the skin. Once her panties are flung over his shoulder, he’s greeted by one of his favorite sights, the small triangle of red that protects her intimate parts.

He places a kiss on her shoulder and then thrusts inside, and when she cries out for him to go harder (which she hasn’t done for a while), he does oblige, because he wants it harder too, he wants it wet and sticky, he wants her back to leave marks on her painted walls, he wants to her to look at that spot and always remember the way he fucks her.

She comes first, with his finger against her clit, and she shudders and grabs onto his shoulder to steady herself. He follows eagerly after, and for a few sweet moments, they pant into each other’s faces, breathe each other’s air.

“I’m still mad,” she says into the silence.

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes,” she says, and finally shoves him off her, “I am, Harvey.”

“How can you be mad after—that?” He gestures helplessly at her askew clothes, and his unbuttoned pants.

“You’re right,” she says, and grins. “You’re right because I don’t have a right to be mad. We’re just two people having great sex, right?”

“Donna. You know it’s not that.”

“Then what the fuck is it?” she asks loudly. “Because I don’t think either of us ever made a decision about that.”

He wants to have an answer, but he’s scared, and in a way, he’s comfortable just having her without explicating it, and he doesn’t want to fight about all the things that still chew at them (him not fighting for her, her date with Clark, Zoe and Scottie, her going behind his back), so he says nothing, just buttons his pants, runs a few fingers through his hair, and walks out the door.

Outside, the smell of sex follows him (it might be permanently etched into his clothes) and he longs for the perfume of her rooms and the sweet flutter of her eyelashes against his face when she kisses him.

*

They stop seeing each other all the time, they stop pointing out legal proceedings that don’t make sense in novels, they stop buying each other’s favorites desserts to bring over. He’s surprised how easy it is to stop doing all of this, like the whole time they were so close they were secretly afraid of falling apart and so they always kept a finger on the undo button.

He figures they never did make a commitment to each other, but he made one in his mind, and he realizes what a mistake that was. Sometimes you just have to say the words.

*

She surprises herself by using her spare key to let herself into Harvey’s apartment. She hopes he won’t take it as an invasion of privacy. She hopes he won’t be with another woman. She hopes he’ll be there at all.

“Harvey,” she calls into the dark room. It’s 2 AM.

He stumbles into his living room groggily, a bat in hand, and flicks on the lights.

“Donna,” he says after a moment of squinting.

“Hey,” she whispers, and then slips past him, into the bedroom. He doesn’t question her, just pushes the covers back to let them both in.

Her skin is cold next to his, which is still warm from slumber. She pushes towards him, angling to fit into all his crevices and crooks, and he allows her, even nuzzling the side of her head.

“It was cold in my bed,” she says against the side of cheek.

“It’s almost June,” he mumbles.

“It can still be cold.”

He slips an arm around her, hugs her, and then lets go.

*

Stay. This could be something, he practices in his head. But it’s always too hard. Fighting is easier, being confused is easier, he knows she won’t leave and that can be enough, can’t it?

_June_

She warms her skin on walks in the city. She rarely ever feels warm anymore, even with her skin pressed against Harvey’s. She’s too prepared for things to fall apart, too suspicious of Scottie, too wistful for either the past or the future—in some ways she wishes they had never moved closer, in some ways she can’t wait to move past this moment, to the future in which she knows she and Harvey will make sense and be able to say all the words they are supposed to.

But June is her favorite month, so she warms herself in the sun, and waits. Harvey always says settlement is better than court. She’ll stop trying to go to court. She’ll settle and wait.

*

“We spent too much time thinking about Scottie,” Jessica says. “Bennett has figured out Mike Ross’ secret.”

Mike staggers to his feet, shoots a look at Harvey, and then stares at the floor.

“What are you saying, Jessica?” Harvey asks in a strangled voice.

“I’m saying that we’re being hit from two sides. Katherine Bennett is finding out all of our worst secrets, and Scottie and Hardman are about to demolish us.”

“No,” Harvey says, “what are you saying about Mike?”

Jessica looks down at her desk, a note of sorrow in her face. “Mike, you’ve done good work here. But I have other employees to think of. I can’t keep you here with Bennett knowing your secret—she’d take us out immediately, and then there would be no Pearson Hardman left at all. Unfortunately, no matter what Harvey says, I’m going to have to let you go.” She fixes Harvey with a look. “And Harvey, you can threaten to leave, but this time it is not a bargaining chip. I’ve given you two too much leeway. It’s gotten us to this.”

Mike corrects his composure, looks into Jessica’s eyes and nods. “Thanks for the opportunity. I appreciate you giving me this much time.”

“Jessica,” Harvey begins.

“Harvey,” Mike interrupts, a sad look on his face, “she’s right. It’s just not fair to the rest of everyone. And you can’t keep putting your job on the line for me.”

He leaves the room, presumably to clean out his desk, and Harvey and Jessica are left. He stares at the wall; she stares at the papers on her desk.

“I’m sorry,” she says finally.

“But it had to be done.” “I’m not going to leave,” Harvey says after a moment.

“Good.”

“But you owe me. So when we win this case, I want my name on the door. Pearson Specter should be the new name of this firm.”

She stares at him now, startled. “Excuse me, Harvey, but I don’t think you can go around making demands like that.”

“I can and I will. You just took my associate away from me. Earlier you threatened my relationship with Donna. I’m not your dog, Jessica, and you don’t get to keep trying to control me. That’s what I want.”

He knows he’s putting on a bargaining front to ignore the hammering in his chest at losing Mike, but it seems to work, as Jessica slowly nods her head.

Later, he finds himself in Donna’s cubicle, staring at his hands, as she slowly strokes his knee (out of sight), and tries to control her quivering lip.

This is the apocalypse.

*

They have their drinks in his office that night, a tired sadness gliding over them. He is jacketless. She has removed her heels.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says finally.

“Just be careful,” she answers. “You can't do anything for him right now. We need to reassess our position. And once you get your name on the door, you’ll have the power to get him back. Help him out.”

She embraces him then, uncaring of potential passerby’s. No one is creeping the hallways any longer—gossip of Harvey losing his associate has reached many ears, and the morale at Pearson Hardman has been halved quickly.

He gathers her up fully. “Thank you for being here, Donna.”

She scoffs. “Where else would I be?”

But they both know the answer to that question. Everything has changed between them too, irreversibly, and any other woman would have left him alone to brood, still angry about the their malleable relationship.

“Harvey,” she says softly. “You live in a glass house. A glass office. What do you think that means?”

He laughs a little. “I shouldn’t throw stones?”

“No,” she says, “it means you want people to see you. It means you’re breakable. It means you want all that goddamned light. You’re a good man, Harvey Specter.”

“That’s why you stick with me?”

She kisses him deeply now, sucking his tongue, holding his lapel, pressing her nose into the softness of his cheek, hard. “Yes, Harvey, that’s why I stick with you. And I’ll always be here for you.”

*

She hates being ambushed. Cameron Dennis knows this, so when he slides into the chair across from her at her solitary Sunday brunch, she jumps immediately.

“Hey, Donna,” he says, a smile flickering on his lips.

“What the hell are you doing here, Cameron?”

“Ah,” he says, eyeing her home friends, “shouldn’t it be Mr. Dennis?”

“I don’t work for you, so no.”

He laughs, signals the waitress, orders a coffee, and snags one of Donna’s home fries.

“That’s good,” he says, licking his thumb.

“Can I get the check?” she asks the waitress, already pushing away from the table.

He stands as she does, leering at her cotton white dress (it pushes her breasts together nicely, it stops just mid-thigh, it’s beautiful), and puts a hand on her arm. She freezes immediately. She hates it when Cameron Dennis touches her, and she hasn’t had to put up with it for years.

“Don’t you want to know why I’m here, Donna?”

“Probably to threaten me about something,” she says, reaching into her bag to pull out her wallet for her credit card.

“Oh, darling, it’s on me,” he says. “I ordered coffee after all.”

“I can pay for my own breakfast.”

“Oh, Donna—”

“You can call me Ms. Paulsen.”

“Donna, I’m going to pay for your breakfast, because you’re exactly right, I am threatening you.” He grabs the little black book from the waitress, scrawls down a tip and a signature, and sits back down with the coffee. He acts like he owns the whole restaurant including her. He acts like he owns the world. “I heard you had a little trouble from Katherine Bennett in regards to Mr. Louis Litt and Mr. Mike Ross.”

She can’t help but sit too, suddenly very concerned. “What do you know about that?”

“Oh, nothing really. I just wanted to let you know that you are next though, Donna. You’re next on Katherine Bennett’s agenda.”

At this she snatches up her purse again and pushes her chair out. “Thanks very much, Cameron, but I can take care of myself. Enjoy your coffee, you asshole.”

On the sidewalk she realizes immediately how reckless she’s being, not taking in his warnings, calling him vulgarities. But it’s too late now, and she’s only left wondering exactly what Katherine Bennett would dig up on her.

*

A few days later, she starts to put the connections together, when Daniel Hardman shows up the firm. He walks jauntily, circling around the cubicles, inspecting offices through doors, grinning at secretaries. He acts like he owns the place again, and she can’t believe it’s any coincidence that he shares this demeanor with Cameron Dennis.

Why, though, she wonders, are they mirroring each other?

She can’t help but confront him when he walks past her desk.

“Hi, Daniel,” she says sweetly.

“Donna!” he cries out. “How are you?” She rises.

“Great, now that I have my job back. Thanks for that memo, by the way. It really made a hard week even better. Hard month for that matter.”

He doesn’t even flinch, and she hates how impeccable he is, the tops of his shoes shining, the suit well-fitting. Any other woman might call him handsome, but she can only shout mental obscenities at him.

“I’m sorry, Donna, I just have no idea what you mean. Did you sleep well last night? Perhaps you need a little break.”

She does the only thing she can think of in the moment: she slaps him.

*

It’s late, and she’s in Harvey’s bed, but he keeps tracing little patterns on her forearm, so she figures that it’s worth speaking.

Earlier, Harvey had called her into his office, perhaps intent on chastising her about her physical treatment of Hardman, but a call from Jessica had diverted him, so they had neither spoken about that nor about Cameron Dennis’ visit. Then they had ridden to his apartment together, but they were intent on dinner and a fun evening, so she had kept her mouth shut.

“Harvey, I need to tell you something.”

The fingers stop their movements, and he sits up in bed abruptly. “Yeah, you do.”

The coldness surprises her. “What?”

“Slapping Hardman, Donna.”

She tilts her head defiantly. “You should be proud of that. I’m sticking up for myself.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he growls. “Do you want trouble too? We’ve already lost Mike.”

She pushes the covers off of her, lets the nighttime cold tickle her skin. “I’m already in trouble, according to Cameron Dennis.”

“What does that mean?” he demands.

“He paid me a little visit at brunch last weekend. Came to threaten me. Said I would be next after Mike.”

Harvey slips into silence for a moment, then rolls his head in her direction. Donna can feel his indecision and refusal to believe her immediately.

“Harvey, he’s not a good man, you know that. He buried evidence. This isn’t that surprising.”

“Burying evidence is different than threatening you,” he says uncertainly.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Look, he was my guy for the longest time. My go-to. Cameron Dennis. I can’t just—assume he has anything to do with getting Mike fired.”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“I know that.”

“So why,” she says hotly, “would you be assuming anything?”

“Bad choice of words,” he says, but she shakes her head. “You never have a bad choice of words, you’re a lawyer.” Then she sighs. “Harvey, I don’t want it to be like this. Fighting over things at working, bringing those things into the bedroom. But I’m telling you, Cameron Dennis has some connection with Katherine Bennett.” She stays silent about the connection between Dennis and Hardman because that is conjecture, and this moment, she’s not sure what Harvey will accept. He has always loved hard, no matter what he says, and these betrayals by Cameron have left him reeling.

“Okay,” he says. “Okay, I’ll keep it in mind.” Then, “Donna, just—I don’t want to lose you too. Keep your head above water, okay?”

She blows out her breath, turns to press her naked breasts to his chest, and lets him run his hands up and down her back.

“Okay, Harvey. I will.”

She says nothing about believing or loving or anything that night. She lets him feel her in his arms, as she has done before. But she plans and she plots and she does what she does best: she prepares to protect him.

*

The only time he forgets is when he her legs are hooked around him, and he rocks in and out of her, and all he can feel are the tiny explosions between them. He likes all the moments when he holds her and dreams about her and stares at her through the glass of his office, but when everything falls apart, he just wants to feel her around him, hot and needy. He just needs, and he likes it when she needs, and even though he still wants her to stay and make a life with him, he just can’t do anything but need right now.


	4. July, August

_July_

She watches him work; the crinkles in his suit give him away. He is stressed, tired, working against two enemies: Katherine Bennett and Scottie. 

Donna has her suspicions now, and her plans, but they hurt her, because those plans are not what she wants. Not what he wants. But part of those plans is giving him the space to fight. The space to be his passionate self, without giving her pieces of himself. He needs to be whole for this fight. 

And want and need are two different things, she reminds herself, they always have been, and her and Harvey have learned that lesson time after time. 

* 

It happens over beers. Donna picks beers because they seem casual, like college taco nights. Casual, she thinks, as she downs a beer and checks her watch. He’s late; he had a meeting with a minor client and this Friday night was the only time he had to meet her.

But when he finally opens her door, and remarks, “You should keep your door locked not latched, you know,” she feels the dark hotness in her that is the start of tears, and she rarely cries, so she knows this is serious. 

“Have a beer,” she says, extending her arm. 

“Thanks,” he says, loosening his tie. 

She starts her on her second beer, oh, this is the second hour that her mind has been made up for sure. Up until this point it was all maybes and one days in her head, but now she knows it must b done. 

But she waits, one hour more, asking him about the client, and touching his cheek tenderly when he forgets to smile. 

Finally, though, she can’t drink anymore, or else she won’t be able to say what she wants to say clearly at all, and she puts her empty beer bottle down, and looks at him, her vision just tinted gold, just a little, the gold of liquid courage. 

“Harvey,” she says, “we can’t do this anymore.” 

He stops immediately, his eyes drawn to her face, his hands shaking just slightly. 

“What?” he says. 

She can’t help but cup his face one more time, and the alcohol rages in her stomach. But even as she holds his hand with hers, she lets the bitter words out.

“You can’t have any distractions at this point. So I say we just end this as it is.” 

He takes a long swig of his fear. “We said no distractions year ago, remember? That time we kissed.” His voice is as bitter as hers. “Look where that got us.” 

“It got us a few good months.” 

He slams the beer bottle down; his sudden violence startles her into knowing exactly how much this upsets him. “They weren’t even that good.” 

“Harvey.” 

“Half the time we were fighting,” he rants. “Half the time—half the time we were making love against your wall, goddammit.” 

“No,” she says, “no.”

Because it’s not true. Because most of the time they were finally, finally where they wanted to be. 

“And the whole time we had no idea what we were,” he continues. “How does that make you feel?” 

She grabs his collar, her thumb caressing a spot on his neck that feels just slightly rough to her skin. 

“No distractions, Harvey. We have to get this done. You were the one who stopped it last time, because you knew that. This time it’s me—I’m the one who knows it.” 

And finally, he leans back in silence. He finishes his beer. He rises, twists a strand of her hair around his finger, tugs it just hard enough to hurt just sweetly enough to remind her that he cares. 

It’s hour four. She has another. 

That night she cries tears of beer, and the whole night slips out of her, all the time that has passed, until she wakes up in the morning and thinks of calling Harvey, and realizes that she has destroyed them, and that she’ll see him on Monday, back as man and executive assistant. 

* 

Her goodbye has him thinking, and Harvey calls up Mike, and takes him out for dinner. It’s not exactly a goodbye, but it feels like one because Harvey is confused and worried and anticipating the demise of Pearson Hardman with the way that they are getting hit from two sides. 

The kid is stoic, upset, nervous. 

Harvey says, “Kid, I’m proud of you.” 

Mike says, “Thanks, Harvey.” 

They stare at each other for a minute, and then Harvey says, “How’ve you been?” 

“Rachel’s been coming around. Giving me news about the firm.” He shrugs. “I’ve been looking around for another job—I’m gonna be honest, now. I figure it’s worth it now.” 

Harvey clears his throat. “You need anything, kid?” 

Mike shakes his head, and Harvey reminds himself, as he does every morning, to get Mike’s job back somehow so that the kid can be safe and taken care of again. 

“Alright,” Harvey taps the table with his fingers, “well, you call me if you need anything. Okay?” 

Finally, Mike looks him in the eye and smiles just a bit. “You’ve gotta stop caring, Harvey. You’ve got a reputation.” 

“Damn straight. You don’t tell anyone about this, got it?” 

But he misses Mike, and the next day, when he sees Donna at her desk he’s glad that even if he can’t slide his hands over her shoulders and pull her to him to kiss her cheeks and eyes and lips, that at least she’s there to offer him coffee and a quick smile. 

And somehow he and Donna get to pretending that they never kissed. They go back to the way things were. She was right, he knows, and now that it’s over between them, his confusion has abated, his obsession with building things with her. But it burns him, it burns fiery and angrily, and sometimes he sees red like the color of her hair. But at least it gives him a reason to fight. But at least she’s there, he consoles himself. At least that’s one goodbye he hasn’t had to make yet. 

* 

She always does everything right as she always has. She jokes, she makes tries hard to brighten his day, she watches out for him. She lets herself pretend she hasn’t made deep imprints in his bed. 

Too many times she catches herself staring at him from her desk, or listening to his conversations not for the information but just for his voice. 

She hates how easy it is to go back on the surface, because deep inside it will never be the same. 

* 

She takes the first train home on Friday night, and the New York greenery whizzes by her eyes until she finally makes it to Cortland where her father waits with the car. 

He pulls her into an embrace the minute she gets of the train, and grabs her little duffel bag. 

At home, her mother waits with a lasagna. The cheese melts in Donna’s mouth and she relishes the tiny pieces of spinach that her mother lovingly shreds. 

She’s only staying the weekend, but her parents have made up her bedroom nicely, with a little bouquet of flowers. It smells like Donna’s mother’s favorite air freshener. 

Donna spends most of the weekend lounging in her bed, feet hanging off the end just slightly, a book in hand, a book that she is barely reading. Sometimes she just plays with the frayed edges of her old pink blanket. 

One time, her mother comes in and sits on the edge of the bed. Her mother’s hair has gone totally gray, but she still looks soft and pretty. Donna longs to reach out and hug her mother. 

“Darling,” her mother starts, and Donna realizes that this will be a serious conversation, “I just wanted to ask you a question.” 

“Yeah, Mom?” 

“Has something happened between you and Harvey?” 

So much, Donna thinks, so much that she can’t tell her mother, who has always loved Harvey but worries terribly about the two of them. 

“Nothing, Mom.” 

“Problems at work, though?” 

“Things have been stressful,” Donna says. 

Her mother sighs, and stretches a hand out. Donna takes it, feeling the soft skin under her own fingers, tracing the veins that riddle the back of her mother’s hand. It would be easy to tell, but she can’t. She can’t break her mother’s heart, her mother who has always believed that if anything ever happened between Harvey and Donna it would be easy. 

“I don’t want to tell you what you should do, darling. But…maybe you should leave, Donna. Pearson Hardman hasn’t been giving you anything but grief lately.” 

But Donna can’t leave. If this is the closest she can be to Harvey, she knows she must stay. Even being in Cortland, so far from him, is beginning to grate on her nerves. 

*

When he can’t sleep, he makes lists of things in his head of he’d like to tell Donna (old stories his dad told him, the things he liked as a kid, tricks he’d love to play on Mike), fantasies that he comes up with (her in a sailor costume, on his desk in Pearson Hardman, in the back of his limo like horny teenagers), what he thinks is beautiful (the big freckle on her right thigh, the way her curtains blow out in the wind, the smudges of mascara she leaves on his pillows). He thinks of schemes and plots and ways they can get out of all of this. He thinks about the afterward, he wonders, if the firm crumbles, would it be better or worse for them? And will this time apart be time wasted? 

One night he considers calling her, but he doesn’t because he can’t. 

It still burns. 

 

* 

“I need you in the game,” Jessica says, leaning over his desk. 

“I’m in the game,” Harvey replies. He fingers his tie. 

“I’m sorry you lost Mike.” 

He sighs and looks at her, finally. “It’s not just Mike.” 

Jessica purses her lips and straightens. He can see a little bit of disappointment in her eyes, but a lot of pity too, and he hates both of those things. But he can’t help but swim in his self-pity, so he doesn’t exactly blame her. 

“Donna,” she guesses, although maybe it’s not that hard to guess. 

“We finished it. So don’t worry.” 

She steps over to his side of the desk, and puts a hand on his shoulder, startling him. 

“Harvey, I will always do what is best for this firm. I will advise you to do what is best for this firm.” She pauses, and looks out the window. “But I’m sorry. I hope when this all ends, you might be able to figure things out with her. And Mike, if possible.” 

He takes in one long breath, and then, voice back to forceful and steady, “I’m coming up with a plan, Jessica. I’ll have it for you soon.” 

*  
She’s had a taste of him, and it was tart but it filled her mouth and made her tingle. Now all she can taste is something like chocolate mixed with sea salt: a richness so tainted by the taste of tears. 

She’s had a taste of him, and she knows it’s the taste she prefers. And she knows that all she wants is to erase this salty chocolate off her tongue and just have the taste of Harvey kisses coating her mouth. 

She tries not to, but she finds herself at his door. He lets her in immediately, and his eyes are red-rimmed, and he breathes things like I miss you on her skin, and she knows that he needs Donna in his arms, not the weight of the firm or fears for the future. 

The way they make love is slow and it makes her pant. 

He deposits her on his bed, and removes her clothing, grazing his fingers under every button and zipper. 

She moans when he kisses her, and she’s embarrassed by how his lips make her feel. They kiss again and again, tongues tender, noses brushing each other. When they finally break apart, he looks at her with large eyes and swollen lips, and she can’t resist another round. 

Her hair is already falling out of its ponytail, his hands tugging at the elastic band, and when it falls over her shoulders, he tips her back, until she’s bared, totally naked, to his ceiling. He trails kisses along her chest, and one hand strokes the curve of her waist. 

His mouth travels down her body, painting little flower designs, and she squirms and laughs and takes deep breaths in to control herself. Eventually, she comes on his lips, panting and crying out. 

“Louder,” he whispers in her ear, and she laughs because he is egotistic. 

But this time she wants to be on top, and she hooks her leg around him to flip him so that she ends up straddling him, a teasing smile on her lips. He draws her in for more kisses, but she forces herself to detach from him so that she can concentrate on skimming her hands over his body, marveling in all the taut skin and muscles. She loves him naked. 

Donna wanders down, coming to his erect penis. She brushes her knuckles over it, and his little intake of breath lets her know how ready he is for her. 

Feeling him inside her makes both her body and heart stutter. He guides her into a rhythm, and soon they are a mess of limbs, both trying to entangle themselves as much as possible. She gasps out his name again and again, and he tangles his fingers into herself, squeezing once, twice, again, until he comes hard into her, and she follows, her cheeks flushed, her mouth crying out his name louder and louder. 

She wonders how she can be without this. 

Their pillow talk consists of pleas that they know the other can’t fulfill. 

“Don’t pick the firm over me,” she says into his shoulder. 

“I won’t,” he says. “But it needs me.”

A few minutes later, he says, “I need you.” 

“I’ll be here for you no matter what we are,” she whispers. “But this is the last time this happens.” 

 

*

Slowly, after the one night that he holds her in his arms, he watches the life they built crumble, and that’s when he begins to doubt inevitability and conjoined lives all together. But the doubt hurts, and he knows it’s because he still believes in them. 

One day, he touches her fingers as she hands him his coffee, just because, and she stares at him, and he knows that means she still cares too. 

But their routines, their safe little life, have disappeared. 

* 

This time, Donna promises herself, her and Rachel will not drunk text Harvey. They will not even get wasted. It’s just two girls, getting a few drinks—because Donna has been exercising control, and this is just another test. 

Donna spins the small straw in her gin and tonic and smiles softly at Rachel. 

“So tell me, what’s new with you?” 

“I’m working a lot,” Rachel says, a careful tone in her voice. “I mean, you know, with all that’s happening at the firm—”

“I know.” 

“A lot of need for a paralegal. Especially this one, who’s leaving for Harvard soon.” 

They clink glasses once, celebratory, though Donna feels a pang of regret, knowing that her friend will be leaving soon. So many people leaving, she thinks. She wishes it could be different. 

“So what are you going to do with your apartment?” Donna asks. “Just get rid of it?” 

Rachel bites her lip. 

“Spill,” Donna says immediately. “What are you up to?” 

“Well, Mike’s been splitting rent with me lately—”

“Excuse me?” Donna downs her drink, calls for another, and swivels on the bar stool to get a good view of her friend. “What does that mean? Are you guys sleeping together? How long as he been there?” 

Rachel laughs. “God, Donna, one question at a time.” 

“This is important.” 

“Okay…well, yeah, we hooked up after he got fired. I just felt so bad for him, I went to go see him, despite what happened with Tess, and we just got talking, and I don’t know, it happened. But I was sort of glad it happened. Even though I made it really clear to him that I was still pissed about what he did. It’s just…” she blows out a breath “it’s been so off and on with him, and the whole time I’ve been miserable. I just want to not be miserable anymore.” 

“And you guys are at that point? Where you’re living together?” 

“Well he’s not working at Pearson Hardman anymore—he needed some place a little cheaper. He’s paying part of the rent, and we’re hoping that by the time I leave, he can pull together to pay all the rent or get a roommate.” She laughs. “I just really like that apartment. I don’t want to give it up totally. And…and I really like Mike. I think it’ll work out. Is that naïve?” 

Donna shrugs. “But what about you leaving for Harvard?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Just—your career, and Mike, and the distance.” 

Rachel folds her hands for a moment, and scrutinizes Donna. 

“I know sometimes it seems like me and Mike are like you and Harvey,” she says. “You know, working in the same place, a chemistry from the first time we met, an awesome friendship. But we’re not you guys…that’s what I realized. And I want to be happy, so I’m going to make it work.” 

This time, Donna bites her lip. 

“I didn’t offend you, did I, Donna? I didn’t mean that you and Harvey can’t be happy, I just meant that our situation was different from yours and that I needed to handle it like that. Instead of worrying about professionalism and all that, I mean.” 

“No,” Donna says, realizing that she and Harvey have been doing it wrong the whole time. “No, you didn’t offend me.” 

Had she and Harvey just thought of it that way. That they wanted to be happy and that they were going to make it work, things might have been so different. They’d always thought of it wrong, put careers first, believed that a career takes precedence over building a life. 

She calls for another drink and wonder if it’s too late now. 

It is too late now, but she wonders if in this time after now, in the future, if they could rebuild. She makes resolutions (she’ll fix this, she’ll fix them, she’ll be honest this time). 

 

_August_

She dreams every night of it being over. 

*

It’s strange standing at Rachel’s door and having Mike open the door. But Donna feels a rush of warmth seeing Harvey’s—their—puppy standing at the door, looking mostly well. His hair isn’t combed, and he’s wearing a threadbare shirt, but he’s well, and healthy, and there’s a small smile on the corner of his lips. 

“Hey,” he says, “I just got your text. I have to get to work soon, but yeah, I’m good for now.” 

“Saturday night?” 

He laughs uncertainly. “I’m actually bartending. Rachel had me take the test as soon as—as soon as Jessica fired me. I’m good at remembering things, so it’s not bad. I’m looking for other work too, but, you know, I’m not a college grad.” 

She smiles softly. “I’m glad you’re doing something though. And that you’re here. At Rachel’s. That’s good.” 

He nods. “So, uh, what can I do for you?” 

“Can I come in?” 

“Sure.” He steps aside, lets her in the door. “Can I get you anything?” 

“No, I’m fine.” She settles into the side of the couch that she usually takes when she’s at Rachel’s (few as the times are, she feels comfortable here). “Look, I need to talk to you.” 

Mike sits across from her and nods. “I gathered as much. You said you thought you had something to get rid of both Hardman and Katherine Bennett.” 

“I think so,” she says. “But I’m not sure. It might be a risk to do this, but if we can pull it off, we’ll be heroes. And I need you as back-up for this.”

“What are we, cops?” 

“Only if I’m the sexy detective that everyone in the precinct wants.” 

He turns red, and she laughs a little too gleefully. Then: 

“Think I’ll get my job back?” he says quietly. 

Donna sends him a heavy look. “Harvey would do everything in his power, Mike.” 

“I know,” Mike says, and it’s strangely shy. “He told me he cares. Sort of.” 

She wants to hug both him and Harvey in that moment, but settles on just clenching and unclenching her fist. And then she proceeds to tell him everything that they need to do. 

* 

For the first step of their plan, she spends all of Sunday baking. She makes pumpkin cookies and frosted little cupcakes and minty brownies. The apartment smells like sugar, and there’s flour covering her countertops. On her table, she arranges plates of finished treats around a small vase of yellow flowers. 

She has always been a career woman. She is the best executive assistant on the East Coast. She has networks. She has lawyers vying to steal her away from Harvey. No matter her position, she has been a career woman, being the best of the best. 

But every so often, she thinks it would be nice to spend a Sunday like this, baking. And after, she’d bring those desserts to her lover’s house, and they’d eat, crumbs brushing their lips, lips brushing those crumbs off other lips. She’d bake cookies and she’d be romantic. 

Donna makes up a beautiful basket, ties it with a bow, and sends it off to Ms. Emily Otto. Step one, complete, she checks off. 

But she keeps a plate of cookies for Harvey, which she drops off on his desk before he gets in on Monday. 

“What’re these?” he asks her once he sees them. He leans against the doorframe.

“Nothing,” she says. “I was baking. Thought you might need a pick-me-up.” 

His lips twitch almost imperceptibly and Donna knows it’s him she wants to bake for, him she wants to cover with flour, him, him, him. She sets her mind to all the daily tasks ahead of her. 

*

There’s a beautiful red head at the park. He watches her, after his run, as she turns pages of her book and gazes up every so often to take in the cloudless day. 

The more he watches her, the more he likes her, until he might even be in love with her because she’s that beautiful. 

He never gets her name. He never even speaks to her. 

He calls her Donna in his head. He pretends it's her, sitting in the park, so close to him. He ignores the fact that isn’t because he wants it to be her, so badly, his Donna with her book, just across the way from him, easy to reach, easy to see, easy. 

* 

“I got your cookies,” Emily Otto says over the phone. 

“I sent cupcakes and brownies too,” Donna says. 

“Yep, I got those too. A little excessive, don’t you think?” 

Donna smirks and checks her email quickly before turning her mind to the conversation at hand. She has known Emily Otto since her times at the DA’s office. The woman has always been full of dry sarcasm, which used to help smooth over rough days at the office (neither of them were very loyal to Dennis), and though Donna hasn’t spoken with her for a while, Emily has always been a permanent fixture in Donna’s network. 

“Not excessive,” Donna says. “Because I have a serious favor to ask you.” 

“How serious?” 

“Do you still work for Cameron Dennis?” 

Emily sighs into the phone. “Unfortunately, yes. I don’t know why the man needs a personal scheduler. He’s not even working any more.” 

“That’s what I thought,” Donna says. “Well, seeing as we both have a little vendetta against Mr. Dennis, I propose we do a little magic and get rid of him.” 

There is silence on the other end. 

“Emily?” 

“This is about Pearson Hardman.” 

“Yes,” Donna says. 

“Look, a bunch of cookies aren’t going to get me to turn against Dennis. As much as I hate him, I need this job.” 

“Oh, Emily, you underestimate me.” 

* 

He lights up as soon as he sees her in his office, and Donna immediately feels the urge to touch him. 

“What is it?” he asks, maintaining his professional demeanor, despite the softness in his mouth. She’s glad though that he’s been able to keep his distance from her. He’s been able to do what she wanted: focus, for the most part, on the firm, even though every so often he, they, slip. 

“I need to talk to you. Privately.” 

“Okay,” he says. “My meeting isn’t—”

“For another half hour, yes, we have time now. So sit.” She can’t keep the agitation out of her voice, and suspects this is why he follows her instructions immediately. 

“I have a proposition for you,” she says. “About how to get this firm out of the red.” 

“I’m listening.” 

She’s glad in that moment that she’s telling him. She toyed with the idea of staying silent, but remembering his ire at her last few secret schemes, she decided that speaking now was better than in the aftermath. She knows she made the right decision: working with Harvey, being with him in any capacity, calms her, and it makes her better at what she does. 

“I think Cameron Dennis and Hardman was working together. I just don’t think it’s a coincidence that we’re being hit so hard—and then Cameron visited me at brunch that day. It just seems off to me. I know we talked about this already, and you thought maybe I was jumping to conclusions, but Harvey, I had Mike look into Katherine Bennett and she has deep connections with Cameron. Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you at all?” 

“Okay, so even if Cameron Dennis is involved with Bennett, how does that connect Dennis and Hardman?” 

“Do you remember Emily Otto?” 

“She was another assistant at the DA’s office when were there. You were friends,” he recounts, squinting his eyes in an attempt to remember. 

“I asked her about any clandestine meetings that Cameron might have had. She said there was on with Hardman.” She pauses to let it sink in. “A secret meeting with Hardman, Harvey. And I trust Emily. This is real.” 

He fixes her with a look, and perhaps sensing how serious she is, he nods. “Alright, if we assume that’s true—and I’m only calling that an assumption for now—what would you propose we do about it?” 

She nods. “I want to talk to Cameron.” 

“What good is that going to do?” 

“Let me take care of that,” she says quietly. 

“Donna—”

“I have to keep some secrets, right, Harvey?” She tries to pull a joking face, but she’s too serious about this. So much is riding on the execution of this maneuver. 

“You’re going to stay safe?” he asks. 

“Of course.” 

His breath comes out in a long, tense hiss. “Keep me in the loop, Donna.” 

“I need you, though, Harvey.” 

He looks at her, perhaps shocked by her words, until he realizes the context. She doesn’t dispute the double meaning though; at this point, she has realized how true it is. 

“I need you to talk to Jessica about giving Scottie a partner position at Pearson Hardman if she throws the trial.” 

“Why would Scottie throw the trial?” 

“Because she’d be getting a partner position at Pearson Hardman.” 

“She’d be better off if she won the trial.” 

“No, she wouldn’t. She’s working somewhere far less prestigious than Pearson Hardman. Didn’t you know?” He shakes his head, and she continues. “After she ruined that merger with Vega, she was fired. She’s working at Wright and Donner now, and it’s a far cry from Pearson Hardman. And that’s what I’m going to tell her.” 

“Donna—”

“You have to trust me, Harvey,” she interrupts. “Just trust me.” 

“Okay,” he says. “I do.” 

* 

It’s raining the day that Emily Otto gets her an appointment to see Cameron. Donna stands on the corner, waiting for a cab. She can’t call Ray, because he’s going to take Harvey to another appointment, and because it’s better to have as many impartial participants in this as possible. 

It’s not a terrible rain, but she can’t help but be annoyed at the little drops that leave wet marks on her shoulders. Until a large black umbrella envelops her. 

“Hey,” Harvey says. “Where’s your umbrella?” 

“Forgot it.” 

“How long have you lived in New York?” he teases. “Whenever it’s grey, you carry your umbrella.” 

“Sorry, guess I haven’t caught on yet.” 

He smiles. “And where are you going on your lunch break today?” 

“To see Cameron,” she says quietly. 

Immediately he drops his other hand out of his pocket and grabs Donna’s hand. His fingers tighten around her, and somehow it feels even better than her mother’s fingers. His are still rough from years of pitching. His are warm. 

“You don’t have to go,” Harvey says. 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

He gets her a cab. He holds her hand the entire time. And when she gets into the cab, he looks like he wants to kiss her. 

She holds on to that look as she directs the cab to Cameron Dennis’ home address. 

She can’t help but be a little afraid, as she always has been of close meetings with Cameron. His leering looks have bothered her, but what worries her more is saying the wrong thing, giving him evidence that he shouldn’t have. 

The guard lets her up as soon as she says her name, and Cameron’s door is open. 

“Donna,” the man says, oily as ever, “how nice to see you. I was surprised when Emily said you’d called.” 

“Yes, I thought you would be,” Donna says. 

She angles herself towards the couch, where Emily promised she had hidden Louis’ running tape recorder. She hopes, desperately, that the pillows do not muffle the sound of her and Cameron’s conversation. This is her shot, to get the information they need. 

“Well,” he extends his hands out, “I’m all ears, Donna.” 

She smiles a little seductively, and juts her chest out. He’s never been able to resist her cleavage. 

“Cameron, you’ve been doing some rather bad things. Getting involved with Daniel Hardman. I have to say I’m impressed.” 

He scoffs. “You’re impressed? The incorruptible Donna?” 

“Incorruptible only as long as I had Harvey around, Cameron. But after you came to see me…well, I realize exactly how little I’ve been getting out of the deal at Pearson Hardman. And I want out.” 

“You want out from Harvey Specter? You?” 

She shrugs her shoulders. “The reason I left you was because he seemed like he was better off at the time than you. Corporate law is lucrative, after all. But now, I don’t know. And Cameron, I want to do what’s better for me.” 

“And what of the rumors that you were the one who found damning evidence against me last time?” 

Play the man, Donna thinks, play the man. 

“The truth. I still wasn’t sure, Cameron, that you were going to come out on top. And I had to secure my position with Harvey. But now, well, you can understand, can’t you, how it makes more sense for me to align myself with you?” 

He tilts his head to the side. “I’m not sure what to think of you, Ms. Paulsen.” 

She creeps closer to him. “Think of me as ingenious. As resourceful.” 

“I’ve always wanted you back, you know. Those resources certainly are useful.” 

“You can have me,” she says, the words harsh on her tongue. “You can have me back.” 

“You’d leave Harvey.” 

“Yes,” she says. “But I don’t want to anything to do with Daniel Hardman.” 

“No?” 

“He’s a weak link, Cameron. He’s failed so many times. He failed because of a silly little affair that he didn’t want Alisha to know about.” 

Cameron smirks. Play the man. Play his arrogance. 

“Well, darling, he won’t be in the picture for long.” 

“Oh really? It seems to be that you two have been in the works for a while, figuring out how to spell out Harvey’s downfall…or so that’s what my network tells me.” 

Cameron nods, seeming intrigued by her knowledge. “That’s true. But only so we could hit Harvey together. He’s got that Scottie on his case—and it’s a ridiculous case as you well know, because Daniel’s done too many stupid and illegal things to get anything out of this, like forging that Coastal Motors memo—and I’ve got Katherine Bennett digging into people at the firm, like I told you. But as soon as we disband Pearson Hardman, and Harvey and Jessica are out of the way, I’m coming back. And all of my little illegalities aren’t going to matter no matter what anyone says.” 

“And I’ll be at your side?” she says, with a cocked eyebrow. 

“Alright,” he says. “But I want your help to get rid of Harvey.” 

“Of course,” she says, and she begins feeding him lies about Harvey, telling him things that he thinks he can use against Harvey. It’s her best acting job yet, and by the end of it, Cameron Dennis is smiling widely, and she knows she has him. 

“Okay, Donna Paulsen,” he extends a hand to shake, “we’re back in business.” 

Yes, she thinks, as she leaves, they are. He has admitted his connection with Katherine Bennett and Daniel Hardman on a recording, he has discussed Hardman and the memo, and he has admitted to illegal proceedings himself. And it’s easier than she thought it would have been. Once again, Cameron Dennis’ arrogance gets the better of him. 

Step two, check. 

She can’t wait to tell Harvey. She hopes he’ll hold her hand again.


	5. September, October

_September_

Rachel leaves on Labor Day Weekend. Donna sees her off, a tissue hidden in her pocket. She gives her friend at little care package of snacks for the journey to Harvard. Later, Donna and Mike buy coffee at a Starbucks. He knows her order. It’s so sad, Rachel leaving, seeing Mike so irregularly. When will it all be okay, she wonders. 

She takes the subway back to her apartment, even though she planned to take a cab (a more private place to sniffle if necessary). She gets off at a stop blocks away from her apartment, and she walks, the wind riffling through her hair. She likes autumn. Her mother used to say the falling leaves look like Donna’s hair. 

Harvey likes autumn, Donna knows. He likes jackets, and autumn ones are the best, because they aren’t too heavy. He likes fall specials at coffee shops. He likes the cold air sweeping through the city. 

She wants to spend just a day curled up next to him, tea in front of them. She wants a calm autumn day with Harvey. 

She knows that on the other side of town, he is going over notes for the Hardman trial. She wants to be there, but she knows she was one who said no distractions, who knew that the luxuries of that kind of an autumn day would have to be lost for the firm. 

But, she admits finally, candidly, she misses him, them, those days of wrapping herself in his sheets and drinking coffee. 

* 

Donna’s not sure it’ll never not be awkward in Zoe’s presence. Knowing that Zoe habituated the same sheets Donna herself craves for, knowing that Harvey could have felt something strong for that woman too, knowing that she, Donna, is the reason that Zoe lost out, even thought she, Donna, ended it with Harvey anyway. 

There’s a tension between Donna and Zoe immediately, but Donna can’t tell how much is coming from her own discomfort, and how much is actually coming from Zoe. 

“Is Harvey in?” Zoe asks, polite. 

“He should be getting out of a meeting shortly,” Donna says. “But he has another one in fifteen minutes, so it’ll have to be quick.”

“Busy man, hm?” Zoe laughs. 

“You know it,” Donna says, not lifting her eyes from the computer screen. 

A moment goes by in silence and Donna lifts her eyes so stare at Zoe. She’s dressed impeccably, looks beautiful. An irrational spike of jealousy goes through Donna. 

“Should I just wait, then?” Zoe asks. 

“Suit yourself,” Donna says, and then coughs. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just been a stressful time. I’m sure you can understand.” 

Zoe looks at Donna coolly, and Donna has an uncomfortable feeling she is wondering exactly why Donna should be stressed when all her position entails is scheduling. Donna considers preparing a barb, and then, perhaps thankfully, Harvey strolls by. 

“Hey,” he says, seeing Zoe. “Come on in.” 

But he looks at Donna curiously, probably noting her mouth set in a grim line, her thinning lips, her clenching hand. She waves him on, and he has other things to worry about, so he follows Zoe into the office. 

That stings, even though Donna knows the way work goes, she knows all of this is irrational. She knows the choices she made. She knows that things will work out like they’re supposed to. 

She can’t wait for the trial to fucking start so that it can end. She sighs and prepares to go bribe Scottie with a new position at Pearson Hardman. 

 

* 

Harvey stares in disbelief at his once lover and now semi-friend, as she presents a bag of evidence to the judge. 

“I can’t represent Mr. Hardman any longer,” Scottie says, “because of this.” 

“And what exactly is it?” Judge Douglas Jordan asks, raising his eyebrow. 

“I received it on my desk yesterday. Anonymously. I don’t recognize anything about the packaging. But I listened to it. There is strong evidence against Mr. Hardman in this tape. I don’t think he’s being honest, and I don’t wish to represent him any longer.” 

“Scottie,” the judge says, a little bit of laughter in his voice, “I’ve never heard you cop out of representing someone just because you don’t believe their story. Tell the truth now. Or is Mr. Specter bribing you?” 

Harvey opens his eyes wide, trying to look innocent. 

“Cut the crap, Harvey,” Jordan says. 

“It’s not crap, Douglas. I have no idea what’s on that tape. I’d say so on the stand.” 

“It is his secretary on the tape,” Scottie says with a small smile, “but I’d believe him if I were you. Harvey would never perjure himself.” 

“Alright,” Jordan concedes, “so you’re pulling counsel.” 

“And submitting this tape as evidence against Daniel Hardman.” 

“What the hell is on there?” 

“It’s Cameron Dennis, confessing that he and Hardman are in league together. And Dennis mentions Hardman’s illegal activities with Travis Tanner and Coastal Motors.” 

* 

They exit the judge’s chambers together, and erupt into laughter when they are finally a safe distance away. 

“Did you see his face?” Scottie says. “He was confused as hell!” 

“To see us working together? I don’t blame him.” 

She tucks her hair behind her ear and cocks her head at him. She looks beautiful, but he can’t help but tap his foot impatiently, ready to get back to Donna and interrogate her on exactly what she did to get a confession out of Cameron Dennis and what the rest of her plan is (he’s not naïve enough to think that she is done). 

“Donna gave it her all on that recording,” Scottie says. “Although I don’t believe for a minute that she would leave you for Cameron Dennis.” 

Harvey frowns. “Is that what she said?” 

“To coerce him? Yeah. I’m almost surprised how easily he caved. But rumor has it he always had a soft spot for Donna, and she played his arrogance.” 

“Yeah,” Harvey says, a dull anger growling in his stomach. He never could stand how Cameron looked at Donna, how he leered and tried to bully her. She never told him explicitly, but Harvey can imagine that Donna tried very hard to avoid late nights with the District Attorney. 

“Are you two okay?” 

He is almost amazed that Scottie has gotten over his rejection of her in favor of Donna so quickly, and then he remembers that Scottie is married. That he is an afterthought now. Not even that. She shouldn’t be thinking of him like that. So he shakes his head. 

“We’re not exactly together anymore.” 

She stares at him, and he can see her put on the face that she uses in the courtroom, the little wrinkle between her eyebrows, the purse of her lips. 

“But why not?” 

He fiddles with his sleeve. That’s the question, isn’t it?

“I just, I mean,” her stutter unnerves him, “I guess I just figured with her it would work for you.” 

“Work,” he says. “It always gets in the way.” 

But he knows what she means. 

There was a time that making it work with Donna might seem impossible. But dating Zoe made him contemplate a relationship, and being with Donna made him understand what it was to be right, and when they, him and Donna, are together, they shine. 

How could they not work? 

 

* 

“But why can’t you just tell him you feel that way?” Rachel tinny voice comes out of the receiver, and it’s nothing like talking to her real friend. The question, though, is still pertinent. 

“Can you imagine a worse time do it?” Donna challenges, and then takes a large bite out of her salad. Even though she was the one who called to complain, this is suddenly not the conversation she wants to be having on her lunch break. 

“Maybe it’s what he need, Donna. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind hearing you’re in love with him and you’re sorry that you broke it off with him.” 

“First of all, I’m not in love with him. Second of all, I didn’t break it off because it wasn’t like we were dating or anything. And third of all, Rachel,” and this comes out as a whine, even though Donna doesn’t whine and she’s very glad that no one is around to hear it, “it’s so complicated.” 

“How is it complicated?” 

“Because,” Donna answers, “I just feel like we’ve taken so many steps forward and so quickly and I don’t know where we are and how he feels and I just want to keep going as much as I just totally want it all to stop.” 

Rachel blows out a breath on the other end. “Look, I have to get to class.” 

“Now?” 

“Yes, now! I’m already going to be late thanks for this little phone call.” 

“You could have walked while you talked,” Donna says grumpily. 

Rachel laughs. “You’re right, Queen Donna. Sorry for sucking.” 

“You should be.” 

“Are you going to be okay?” 

“Obviously,” Donna scoffs. “I just needed to blow off some steam. Thanks. Have a good class.” 

Later, she will feel sorry for the salad that she so viciously finished off. 

 

* 

She meets him in his office, all smiles and curling red hair and naughtiness. 

“So,” she says, “how did it go?” 

He slides into his chair, stretches back, and sends her a grin of his own. 

“Unfortunately, Mr. Daniel Hardman lacks representation at the moment.” 

She’s too dignified to jump or shout, but he can see the excitement, running in rivulets throughout her body. But she simply juts her hip out, tilts her head up. It’s her victory position. 

“Alright, alright, now give me some answers. What the hell did you do to get this all to work out?” 

She perches daintily on the seat, and then flutters her eyelashes. “Might you have a couple compliments and congratulations to dole out first?” 

He rolls his eyes. Victory makes them giddy. He likes it. It makes him forget all the hurt that vibrates between them. But he has to admit, he likes it when they’re easy, flowing, not worrying about appearances or feelings. 

“Oh, come on, Harvey, don’t I deserve that?” 

“Drop the act, Donna, you’re not such a good girl.” 

He groans internally when her gaze turns purely naughty, because he knows that look. She uses it when she is positioned between his legs, mouth ready to take him. 

“Harvey,” she whines. 

He knows that whine, only it’s breathier when she’s asking him to help her come. 

“I’ll buy you that purse you were looking at earlier.” 

“How do you even know I was looking at purses?” 

“You always do around ten. It’s what you do on your break.” 

“You’re ridiculous,” she says. 

“And you’re amazing,” he replies, giving in to her demands. “Now tell me.” 

“Okay,” she says, all down to business, and he leans forward, hands clasped together, listening intently. “Now try and follow me here.” 

“I think I can manage. I did graduate top of my class from Harvard.” 

“That was Scottie.” 

“I could’ve beaten her with an ounce of effort.” 

It’s her turn to roll her eyes. “Shut up and listen.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

A small smile tugs at his lips as she resettles herself and begins her dramatic rendition of the events: “Okay, so it was suspicious that Katherine Bennett started investigating Pearson Hardman just as Hardman decided to come back. Bad timing, you might say, but coupled with the fact that Katherine Bennett wasn’t doing her ADA duties by being here, something seemed off. Plus, Cameron threatened me with firing, just like Louis and Mike. Doubly suspicious. I had Mike check her out, and he came up with some old connections with Cameron Dennis. Seemed like maybe he’d helped her get where she is, into this position. And then I decided to call in a favor with an old friend. Emily Otto, his secretary.”

“Why does he even have a secretary? He’s out of work?”

“Who knows, but it worked out in our favor. Now let me finish.” 

He fights the urge to stick out his tongue because that isn’t exactly closer behavior. Instead, he waves her on. 

“So I asked Emily if he’d had any meetings lately. Like with Daniel Hardman. Thankfully, she hates him as much as we do, so she was happy to tell me that yes, Cameron had been meeting with Hardman. I was convinced. So the next thing to figure out was what exactly to do. I thought direct confrontation would be best.” 

“Yeah. You went to see Cameron,” he says, thinking of that rainy day, when he’d held her damp hand, felt her agitation in her fingers, and squeezed hard. 

“Right. Well, I had a little ally for that confrontation. Emily Otto, again.” 

“What did you promise this woman for her help?” he demands, trying to understand why the woman would put her job in jeopardy. 

“I’m getting to that! I told Emily I needed to tape the conversation with Louis’ Dictaphone. That way I could have evidence of Hardman’s betrayal, which Emily would then send to Scottie. I needed Emily to send it so it would be from a totally outside source, and I needed Scottie to drop opposing counsel because we needed to get Hardman into a corner. Plus I’d rather have Scottie on our side than on his.” 

“And we promised Scottie a position as senior partner at Pearson Hardman if she did that.” 

“Yes, I went and told her that after she got the tape. Not exactly a bribe. She was pretty disgusted by the proof on the tape about Hardman planting a fake memo. And before you ask, the proof is simply Cameron mentioning that the memo was a fake. But it’ll hold up well in court. And Scottie? Yes, she would rather have senior partner here than win one good case at her current law firm.” 

“And you promised Emily Otto…?” 

“A position as secretary for Scottie.” 

“You’re filling our ranks with enemies,” he says with a grin. 

“Not enemies, allies. Haven’t you been listening?” 

“Right. You’re right of course. So the next step in your plan is to get him to drop the case.” 

“It’s my hope,” she says. “But I don’t want to be naïve. At least we have Scottie on our side and some evidence against him in the courtroom now, though. And with that we can counterclaim that Hardman engaged in illegal activities and that his removal from the firm is justified. Instead of fighting about Mike’s affidavit and the drug tests, which are minor issues as compared to him framing him for fraud, we can be on the offensive about Coastal Motors.” 

“I should offer you a position as a junior partner here at Pearson Hardman. Good work, Counselor.” 

“Junior partner? I’m thinking senior partner.” 

“Don’t push it.” 

“A lot of it was Mike. And Louis gave me the Dictaphone.” 

“You’re saying we should take them both back as soon as we can, right? Pretty generous of you.” 

She crosses her arms and smirks at him. “You were going to do it anyway, no matter how much you hate Louis. You’re a fair man, Harvey.” 

He frowns suddenly, a thought coming to him. And with it, the air grows tense, his limbs grow tense, because the question that he is about to ask her is going to take them out of work territory. It’s going to put them into personal territory, but even in the span of a moment, the thought gnaws at him. It will eat him inside out if he doesn’t ask her. 

“Why did you tell me we had to—stop our extracurricular activities? Nothing in the plan has to do with that.” 

She fixes him with a serious look. “No distractions. I wasn’t lying about that. But also—Harvey, if we go to trial, they’re going to ask me about us. I’d rather not perjure myself on something like that.” 

“No?” 

“It’s not information for a court to hear.” 

“And you plan to perjure yourself otherwise?” 

She shrugs slightly, and he gets it. They don’t like playing dirty. But most of the time, it’s necessary, especially in a case like this. He never considers perjuring himself otherwise, but to get Hardman of their backs, he might. 

“Well,” he says, “thank you, Donna. For everything.” 

She bites her lip, and it’s the first time this whole conversation she has looked nervous. “It’s my firm too. So I’d do anything to protect it.” 

And you, her eyes say. 

His eyes trace the curves of her lips, and he wants desperately to be distracted by her in his arms. 

*

He finishes reporting it all to Jessica, who looks a little astonished. 

“Countersue Daniel Hardman?” 

“Sounds like we’re all set to do it,” he says, taking pride in the way that Donna’s plan has impressed Jessica. 

“Will we win, Harvey?” 

She has her lips pursed in thought, and Harvey just watches for a moment. 

“Well?” she prompts. 

“I don’t know, Jessica, but it sounds like with that tape we have a stronger case than he does against us. Scottie’s on our side. And if I had to guess, I’m sure Donna has another ace up her sleeve.” 

“She always does, doesn’t she?” Jessica says, but her face turns serious. “But that woman would do anything for you, wouldn’t she?” 

“I—”

“Yes, and she has a serious vendetta against Daniel Hardman about that memo. Honestly, Harvey, what he did was wrong, but she was the one who shredded the document.” 

“So you’re questioning her competency? Because honestly, Jessica, she’s done a lot more for us than we’ve been able to do for ourselves. And goddammit if I don’t trust Donna with my life, let alone my career. I was pissed earlier about the damn memo too, but that’s over now. That’s one mistake and she made up for it pretty quickly.” 

He falters at the faint smile on his boss’ lips. 

“Are you playing me, Jessica Pearson?” 

“Just wanted to make sure you were confident about this plan. Really, Harvey, you think I would let you keep an untrustworthy secretary in this office?” 

For once, he has nothing to say, just a tiny embarrassed shrug of his shoulders. The amusement on her face glows, and he feels the urge to roll his eyes at her. He resists. 

“I don’t why you two don’t just make it official, with the way you take care of each other.” 

“You’re the one who told me to be careful!” 

“You never listen to me, Harvey. This good boy routine is getting to be a bad habit. I warned you, I didn’t expect you to actually heed me.” 

He rubs his cheek with his palm, half-irritated, half-wistful, and stands abruptly. 

“So I’ll run up the countersue paperwork then?” 

Jessica straightens too, back to business. “Yes, thank you, Harvey.” 

*

“Get out of my chair,” Harvey growls. 

“But why?” Hardman asks, rolling back in it. He leans back smugly. 

“Seriously.” 

“Only special people can sit in your chair?” Hardman mocks. “How touching, Harvey. I hear sometimes your dear secretary gets to sit in it. Or perhaps it’s actually her sitting on you?” 

“Didn’t think you cared much for office gossip,” Harvey says, ignoring the tiny pulse of desire he feels at the image of Donna straddling him in his office chair. 

“I came to deliver the good news to you,” Hardman says, finally standing. “I thought you’d be happy to hear it from the source.” 

“Cut the crap, we don’t work together anymore. You don’t have to pretend. What is it?” 

“Well, I’ve decided to let you countersue. I’ll be representing myself at the trial.” 

Though he is unsurprised, Harvey does pause. 

“Yes,” Hardman continues, “I thought seeing Scottie might be nice for you. A nice little reunion.” 

“You thought it would unnerve me.” 

“Well I figured I might grant you an opponent more around your level of expertise. That way your defeat wouldn’t be so bad. But now, I think you should be prepared to be, let’s see…crushed.” 

*

“We’re going to Le Bain tonight,” he whispers in her ear. 

She turns to stare at him: first for his intrusion into her desk area, and second for his words. 

“What the hell, Harvey? Le Bain the club? In the Meatpacking District? What are we, twenty-five?” 

“I happen to know the owner well. We’ll get in. Just wear something sexy.” He winks, and she rolls her eyes. “Come on, Donna, Daniel Hardman’ll be representing himself at the trial. I need a goddamned break.” 

“Excuse me?” She swivels in her chair to stare at him. “This is how you’re going to choose to deal with that, Harvey? What happened to no distractions?” 

“I think we need a distraction.” 

And who is she kidding, they’ve been distracting each other since she told him no. It isn’t in their nature not to distract. Especially each other. It’s just each other’s presence that shakes them, keeps their eyes from focusing on work, keeps their conversations flirtatious and just wrong for the work place. 

That night she steps into Harvey’s limo, wearing a tiny gold top, a short black shirt and thigh high boots. She goes all out with her make-up, playing up a long cat eye and using half of her mascara. Her hair is blown out in large curls. His hand is on her thigh the minute she sits down. 

“You look amazing.” 

“Did you seriously pregame for Le Bain? They have drinks there. Which you will be buying me.” 

“I’m not drunk,” he says, and then pushes her hair off her neck. “Can’t we just be fun anymore, Donna?” 

She can’t help but pick up on the challenging note in his voice, and in response, she pushes her thigh more firmly into his hand. He swallows hard, and she knows that she’ll win by the end of the night. Being the most fun—she has this one in the bag. Though it doesn’t mean she won’t have to be on her toes. Harvey often has tricks up his sleeve. 

Somehow he gets them into the club without standing in line (something about a case, she’s pretty sure, but she’s just glad that she doesn’t have to listen to wasted NYU students talk about their EU IDs and how they’re sure the bouncers won’t notice). By the time they’re inside, she can feel sweat prickle on the back of her neck, and she knows it’ll be one of those grimy nights she hasn’t really had since her late-20s (and during a few bad bachelorette parties after that). 

“Gin and tonic,” he suggests, and takes off after her affirmation. 

He gets back quickly, and she notices it, because he has a smug look on his face. She has a feeling he somehow cut half a line to get these drinks. She sips slowly, watching the sweaty bodies wind around each other. It’s only 11, and yet the music is loud, the heat is high, and everyone looks like they’re about pull each other’s clothes off. 

“I didn’t put anything in your drink, you know,” he says, bellowing above the music. 

“Just don’t wanna get drunk too fast.” 

“Oh, you’re getting drunk tonight?” 

She twists her lips into a teasing smile, and downs the drink. Her gin and tonic is followed by a few shots of tequila, and soon she can feel the warmth of a buzz settling into her bones. Somehow, she thinks, her and Harvey always end up getting drunk before they do bad things. It’s their gateway, she laughs, and then downs her last shot. 

“Let’s dance,” she murmurs into his ear, and he perks up. 

Despite the years it has been since she has gone clubbing, favoring bars instead of the heat of the Meatpacking District, the beat hasn’t left her. She can barely check her hips as they sway left and right, and her chest pumps out and in, and her hands are in her hair, as she does her best impression of a sexy backup dancer. 

Harvey mostly watches, letting her steal the show, although she does notice him glare at some of the men that creep forward, trying to catch her eye. 

“You aren’t going to join me?” she says into his ear. 

It seems like that was all the invitation he needed, as he presses his palms to her waist, and pulls her in so that she is grinding against his body. He keeps her flush to him, only moving one hand into her hair. She breathes into his shoulder and watches his throat bob in anticipation. 

And then jerks into her, and she can feel the heat pool between her legs, and she body begins to throb. He brushes her neck with his lips, and slides his tongue along the taut muscle. She doesn’t fight the shiver; she just lets him know that she wants him with her hips. 

“Donna,” he mumbles into her ear, but she can hear loud, and in response, she musses up his hair and arches into him as far as she can go. 

They dance for a long time, pressed against each other, sometimes just on the cusp of it being too much—as if their bodies can’t take being that flushed and that close for so long. 

“Fun,” he says, face pressed against her hair, trying to get to her ear. “Just fun.” 

And they have fun. But she knows, as she arranges the blanket over his naked body, making sure he won’t be cold in the middle of the night, that nothing can just be fun between them anymore. That his careful touch is indicative of something much bigger than fun. 

* 

He drinks coffee and thinks about Hardman and Jessica and his father. He drinks coffee and thinks of Donna in her tiny gold top, smiling at him with the universe in her mouth. She had possibility between those lips, and he hopes it’ll be there whenever she laughs. 

_October_

She knows they’re going in circles. She knows this is where they started, drinking and laughing and lying in each other’s bed like the world was easy. But this is the place that they work too. The place where nothing is hard and everything, everything is just their desire. 

But the problem is, they’ve already admitted how they feel, in actions and looks. She knows he cares for her. He knows he has always known, perhaps ever since she shredded a memo for him, for them. 

Sometimes when he looks at her, his eyes say, why are you so far away, why, when we can just make it work here, together? But then she wonders if those are her eyes, just being reflected in his. Either way, it terrifies her. That both of them let the mask down, telling each other, not quite hiding anymore. 

She knows they are going in circles, and she doesn’t know how to break the cycle. Not when there’s a trial going on, not when there’s their happiness totally and utterly on the line. Not when talking will make everything crumble. 

She knows they are going in circles that aren’t really circles, because every time they get closer and closer to the center of those circles where everything is Harvey and Donna and love and making it work, but she wishes they could get there faster, and with less circles. 

*

“What are you doing here, Mike?” Harvey sighs, as he pulls open the door to his office. “Didn’t think you worked here anymore.” 

“Low blow, Harvey.” 

Harvey looks at his ex-associate standing in the light of his office, a lightness in the boy’s shoulders. Hope, Harvey thinks, and happiness, that’s what’s on his shoulders. He feels an overwhelming sense of jealousy. 

“Is Donna here?” Mike asks. 

“No. Not yet. Why?” 

“Look, I have something to say to you.” 

Harvey raises an eyebrow. “So say it.” 

“You and Donna. You’re pulling a Ross and Rachel.” 

Harvey sets his briefcase down. “And what is that supposed to mean?” 

Mike’s face crinkles in confusion. “Hit sitcom of the ‘90s? Ross and Rachel? C’mon, Harvey, there are reruns on all the time—”

“I know who they are, I just don’t know why you’re spouting their names in my office. And why are you here? Still haven’t answered that.” 

“We have a meeting with Jessica.” 

“You don’t work here anymore.” 

“She wants my expertise,” Mike says, a vaguely familiar smug look on his face. Harvey realizes it’s his. “But that’s not the point. You know, Ross and Rachel, they kept breaking up and getting back together again. And it sucked.” 

“Thank you for the pop culture lesson, but—” 

“N-n-no you’re not listening! That’s you and Donna, okay? I mean, I remember that week when I called you and you were hung over as hell. And then Donna tells Rachel about her little night out at Le Bain—don’t think I can’t put the pieces together! If this is you two getting back together again…” 

“We were never together, okay? We were just spending some extracurricular time together.” 

“Why can’t you just do it right, Harvey?” Mike crosses to him, face serious. “I know you two. You could do it. It just has to be done right.” 

“Look, we tried that. It didn’t work. Just let it go.” 

“You didn’t try anything. You never sat down and said the goddamned words, said I want this.” His voice lowers. “Look, I did that with Rachel. Keeping things. And it took a disaster to get us to work. You want a disaster? Just stop, Harvey, stop playing games.” 

“I don’t need your advice,” Harvey says, removing a few papers and slamming his briefcase shut. 

“Yeah, right. We’re still talking about it, so you do. You need my advice and you’re going to take it. Now shut up and get your head in the game. We need to help Jessica strategize.” 

Harvey opens his mouth and then closes it. The kid has a point and the kid knows it. And Harvey hates that. But, of course, Mike ruins his win, by turning around like a little boy and grinning. 

“Pretty good, huh? I got you thinking. And you know I’m right,” he singsongs. 

“Shut up,” Harvey says, and grabs Mike’s arm to lead him out the door. 

* 

He’s glad that neither side decided to sequester witnesses, as he and Donna sit next to each other in the back on the courtroom. He wouldn’t have been surprised if either side had found it necessary to sequester, but Jessica had said that it made little difference: all of Hardman’s witnesses knew exactly what they were going to say, and no testimony was going to change that. Harvey figures that Hardman thought the same thing. 

But seeing Hardman turns around, seek him in the crowd, and grin, makes him think that Hardman wanted Harvey at the trial. He wanted Harvey to see every moment, to feel each witness’ pain and irritation, to feel backed into a corner. 

Opening remarks are what he expected. Hardman is attacking Pearson Hardman for misleading the partners and causing his ejection from the firm. Jessica claims that while the partners might have been misled, no illegal activity took place, and none of the partners were compelled to vote a certain way. And now with proof of Hardman’s illegal activities, Hardman’s point is a moot one, as the case is bigger than just reinstating him. 

“I call Mr. Jason Prindle to the stand,” Hardman says. 

“Why?” Donna whispers into Harvey’s ear. 

“He’s going to soften up the jury. Make Prindle talk about Hardman’s best qualities from a partner’s perspective. What an asset he is to the firm and what a shame it is to have us let him go.” 

He’s right, and Prindle gives the jury a rundown of all of Hardman’s capabilities from effective handling of cases to fairness when working with all employees. Prindle even takes the opportunities to take a few jabs at Jessica and Harvey and their lack of competence. 

“I only have one question,” Jessica says, once Hardman finishes his questioning. “How much did he pay you to say such nice things about him?” 

“Objection,” Hardman says calmly. 

“Sustained,” says the judge. “Ms. Pearson, stay within an appropriate line of questioning.” 

“Of course, your Honor. The witness may step down. I’m finished with him.” 

“Very well.” The judge nods at the witness and then returns his gaze to Hardman. “Your next witness?” 

“Mr. Michael Ross.” 

Donna grabs his forearm suddenly, and Harvey gives her a soothing look. 

“We prepared for this,” he reminds her. 

She nods and detaches her fingers slowly. Mike walks to the stand confidently. He doesn’t look at Jessica or seek out Harvey. He simply levels his gaze at Hardman. 

“Please state your name for the record.” 

“Michael Ross.” 

Hardman nods. “Mr. Ross, I’d like to discuss the day that you brought a signed affidavit to the Pearson Hardman partners.” 

“Sure,” Mike says superciliously. 

“Tell me, who signed that affidavit?” 

“I did.” 

“With whose name?”

“My own.” 

“And you realized that you were committing a grave offense?” 

“It wasn’t an offense,” Mike shrugs. “None of the partners took the time to check. Seemed to me like they wanted you out and didn’t really care what was actually on the paper.” 

“And what sort of impression are you trying to give about Pearson Hardman? That it’s the type of law firm that likes to lie and cheat its own?” 

“Well, I don’t work there anymore, so really, I guess it doesn’t matter.” 

“And in terms of cheating a law firm, maybe you’d like to comment on your lack of law degree while practicing as a lawyer?” 

“I’m in the Harvard alumni database, so you might want to reconsider that statement,” Mike says. 

“Well, Mr. Ross, you’re not in any undergraduate database, so I do sense a certain discontinuity in this issue,” Hardman says, his eyes accusing. 

“Objection,” Jessica says. “This line of questioning has no bearing on the issue of the affidavit. Please get to the point.” 

“Sustained,” says the judge. 

Hardman sets his mouth in a line and turns to the jury. “Simply trying to give the jury a sense of Mr. Ross’ character. Mr. Ross denied his own people the truth. This is the type of person who removed me from my post. Does that seem right to you? Does this seem like someone whose motivations would be good?” He leers at Mike. “No further questions. Your witness, Jessica.” 

“Ms. Pearson,” she corrects tightly, and then stands. “Mr. Ross, how are you today?” 

“I’m fine.” 

She cocks her head. “Well, let’s get right to the important question then. Can you tell me why you decided to sign your name to that affidavit? Knowing that you were always dedicated to Pearson Hardman, I wonder why you would choose to mislead the lawyers?” 

“Well, that’s easy enough. Mr. Hardman planted the Coastal Motors memo in our office. And that was wrong. Unfortunately, those who knew wouldn’t sign the affidavit. I understand maybe it wasn’t the best course of action, but someone had to get Hardman out.” 

Jessica turns to the jury. “Alright, Mr. Ross admits his poor judgment. But he does seem to have a good reason. Please keep that in mind. I’m sure it’ll come up later in this trial. No further questions.” 

The jury looks perturbed, and many of them seem interested, cocking their heads. 

“We have them where we want them,” Harvey says to Donna. “We need them to focus on that tape and nothing else.” 

“So we have to play them. Play the men, right? Get them interested and excited, so that they lose the strand of Hardman’s logic,” she replies. 

He nods. “But Hardman has one last witness for today. I’m guessing that’ll be the killer.” 

At that moment, Hardman stands and addressed the courtroom. “I call Cameron Dennis to the stand.” 

“Fuck,” Donna mutters. 

“It’ll be fine,” Harvey says, touching her wrist softly. “Don’t worry.” 

“Of course I’m worried,” she murmurs. “He’s a fucker.” 

He sends her a slightly irritated look and she shrugs, not at all sorry for her expletives. They break into tiny smiles, well aware of each other’s positions on the Cameron Dennis issue, and then refocus on the trial. 

“Mr. Dennis,” Hardman greets. “I’d like to speak to you about a piece of evidence that has come to the court’s attention. It’s an anonymous tape that was sent to a Ms. Dana Scott. According to Ms. Scott it is your voice on that tape. She says she’ll bet on it, and would even pay for a speech analyst to prove it. Convincing, hm? Is it, in fact, you on that tape?” 

“Yes,” Cameron says. “It’s me.” 

“And who are you speaking to?” 

“Donna Paulsen, Harvey Specter’s secretary.” 

“Harvey Specter’s secretary,” Hardman says, feigning thoughtfulness. “So definitely someone with an agenda. Seems to be she might have coerced you in some way, just to get her way.” 

“Oh, definitely,” Cameron says. “As you can hear on the tape, she deceived me into thinking we might work together.” 

“Objection,” says Jessica. “Misleading is not coercion. It’s simply being smart.” 

“Sustained,” says the judge. 

“Fine,” Hardman growls. “Regardless of Ms. Paulsen’s actions, let me ask you, were you aware that you were being taped?” 

“No, I was not.” 

“So Ms. Paulsen taped you without your knowledge—”

“Objection,” says Jessica. “You have no proof that Ms. Paulsen knew she was being taped.” 

“Sustained,” the judge replies lazily, and Harvey has the distinct impression that the judge is amused. Harvey wonders why Hardman keeps making amateur mistakes, but maybe he’s just trying his luck, trying to get Jessica to slip up. 

“Very well. Let me ask you this, Mr. Dennis, as you didn’t know you were being taped and that this tape could be used as evidence in a trial, would it be possible that you did not speak the whole truth?” 

“Possible, yes,” Cameron replies. Donna tightens her fist. 

“So you would recommend that the court expunge the tape from the record of evidence, as you weren’t telling the whole truth?” 

Cameron coughs uncomfortably. “Yes, well, I don’t recall exactly what I said, so I can’t even tell you what I think on that matter.” 

Hardman smiles placidly. “And so you see, ladies and gentlemen, if Mr. Cameron cannot speak for the tape’s validity, can we really hold it as evidence in court? Particularly if there were a potential of coercion towards the witness.” He bows slightly towards Jessica. “Your witness. Good luck getting anything out of him.” 

“Thank you, Daniel,” Jessica says, and stands. Her imposing figure can’t quite dwarf Cameron Dennis, but it does cut an impressive vision for the courtroom. “Well, Mr. Dennis, I’m afraid Mr. Hardman left out a very important question. Were you telling the truth about Daniel Hardman and the fake Coastal Motors memo on that tape?” 

“As I said,” Cameron says, raising an eyebrow, “I can’t recall what I said.” 

“You said,” Jessica says, tapping a piece of paper on her desk, “that ‘Daniel’s done too many stupid and illegal things to get anything out of this, like forging that Coastal Motors memo.’ Now tell me, was that the truth?” 

“I was never clear on the situation between Coastal Motors and Daniel Hardman.” 

“Ah, ever the lawyer, Mr. Dennis. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would have sufficed. And probably a ‘no’ would’ve been better for your friend, Mr. Hardman.” 

“Ms. Pearson,” the judge says. 

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” she replies, not sounding sorry at all. “But I’m sure the jury can see that there’s reasonable doubt that Mr. Dennis wasn’t telling the truth just because he didn’t know   
about the tape. Otherwise, Mr. Dennis would have just given us a simple ‘no.’ The witness may step down.” 

Harvey turns to Donna, for once, confused. “What the hell? She could’ve ripped him apart.” 

“Oh,” Donna says, “I let her know about a secret weapon this morning. She doesn’t want to go after Dennis because she’s way more excited about a certain fourth witness that I got her.” 

* 

She leaves the courtroom bathroom and scans the crowd for Harvey, Jessica, and Mike. They’re going to lunch to discuss events and also celebrate with a mid-afternoon drink or two. They’ve come out ahead, they’re sure. The jury is doubting Hardman’s claims, and now the Pearson Hardman team is ready to start pulling punches. 

These thoughts keeps her from noticing Cameron Dennis pushing his way towards her until he’s right in front of her, his harsh glare poisonous. 

“You’re a fucking bitch,” he says. 

“Hi, Cameron, good to see you too.” 

“You tried to play me—”

“No,” she says, her voice sharp, “I did play you. I did everything I could to embarrass you and bring you down. And it worked.” 

“You knew about the tape.” 

“How could I plant a tape in your office without you knowing? Now you’re just being paranoid. But I definitely got you to talk. I fooled you and I got you to talk.” 

“You did it for Harvey, hm?” He’s moving closer to her, his breath a little sour, and she assumes that’s the anger coming through. In her peripheral vision she can see Harvey, concerned, staring at her, but she shakes her head. She can handle Cameron Dennis. 

“I did it for the sake of my employers, Pearson Hardman.” 

“You do everything for Harvey,” he spits. “Why don’t you just admit it, your whole life revolves around him! Admit it!” 

“I’m not admitting anything to you, Cameron,” she says, and walks away. 

She does, however, keep admitting it to herself every step she takes next to him, her steps matching his on the New York pavement. 

*

The next day in the office, she stares at his profile through the glass of his office. She’s been doing it for hours now, barely concentrating on her work, thinking of the things that Cameron said to her. 

She’s startled to hear Harvey’s voice in her ear, shaking her out of her reverie. 

“Don’t think I don’t think about it too,” he says, voice deep. 

“Think about what?” She tries to pretend her voice doesn’t quiver, but this feels like a moment, this feels like the bridge moment, the moment when things could change. 

“Us,” he replies. “Us and what we could be and I just wonder—why can we just do this?” 

She remains silent, keeps staring at him, until he lifts his head and meets her eyes, the only thing between them a large pane of glass. 

“I don’t know,” she says. 

“Me either,” he admits. 

It’s in that moment she thinks maybe they both know that everything that has happened between them is ridiculous, stupid even. For all the steps they’ve taken forward, they’ve taken steps back too. 

“I think we could make it work,” she whispers. 

“Me too.” 

“Okay,” she says. 

He hums a note of approval, and then it’s time for them to go back to work. But before they end their eye contact, he nods at her once. 

“Let’s do it right, okay?” 

“Okay,” she says. 

* 

I can love you enough for the both of us, she once thought. 

Now, she realizes that she doesn’t have to.


	6. November, December

_November_

She has always liked November, despite the desperate chill settling into her bones. She likes the tiny gourds she places on her windowsill, the trees readying themselves to bear the weight of snow, the greys and purples and muted oranges of the month. She likes going home and pulling a turkey out of the oven, and agonizing over dessert trays, and football with her brothers. 

November is the homiest month. 

*

He does a double take when she opens the door, because she’s dressed in black spandex with tiny cat ears on her head. Her curves stand out prominently, particularly in black, and her waist is tiny, accented by a heavy black belt. She holds both a mask and whip in her left hand, and he swallows hard. 

“Hey,” she says, and her cheeks are tinged red. 

“What are you dressed like Catwoman?” 

Donna laughs awkwardly, and moves aside to let him in. “I just really liked this costume. I wanted to wear it again before it was time to put it away. Problem?” 

“You’re kidding.” 

He rarely laughs so deeply around people, but this time he can’t contain himself, just thinking about Donna admiring herself in her Halloween costume for hours, on November 10th. It’s a strange sensation, to be so turned on by all that spandex (he hasn’t had her body in his hands for far too long) while finding it hilarious. 

“I’m going to kick you out,” she warms, and grabs a sweatshirt. 

“Hey,” he says, “don’t do that.” 

She stares at him, a little burn in her eyes (she knows what she’s doing to him, it’s obvious). His fingers itch to pull down the zipper holding her all together, to languidly expose all that pale skin, but they have an unspoken deal, that this won’t deteriorate into sex before dates, pure intimacy before words. 

“Look, I just came over to see if you’re reading to testify tomorrow.” 

“And if I wasn’t?” she asks, finally pulling on the sweatshirt. It’s his. 

“Then I’d tell to get the hell ready.” 

“That’s my boy.” She plays with the hem of the sweatshirt in a familiar way that makes him think she wears it often. “I’m ready. Are you?” 

“I never back down.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Donna nudges him in the ribs. “But are you ready?” 

“I just want it to be over,” Harvey says quietly. “This has been hanging over us for almost a year.” 

She grabs his hand and links their fingers. He smiles almost uncertainly, though he wouldn’t admit it, and she pulls him in for a long hug. Not for the first time, he realizes they fit. But this time he also realizes that having her close like this can actually be enough. He blows out a breath into her hair, and passes his free hand over the small of her back. She lets him tighten his hold, skim that hand over her ribs, then make little circles on her hip. 

* 

“Ms. Pearson,” the judge says, after the formalities of the court finish, “please call your first witness.” 

“Mr. Harvey Specter,” she says simply, and turns to give him an inviting little smile. He doesn’t give her one back, though, he feels it growing at the corners of his lips. 

He states his name and position for the record, and looks out into the courtroom audience for one moment. He sees Donna immediately, her hair bright, her expression strong. She doesn’t meet his eyes; hers are scanning the jury intensely. He sees Mike in another corner, jaw tight. And he thinks he sees Louis right in the back. In front of Harvey is Hardman, mouth slipping into that irritatingly curious half-smile that the man favors. Harvey sneers. He has no reason to pretend to respect the man any longer. 

“I only have a few questions for you, Mr. Specter.” 

“Shoot,” Harvey replies. A woman in the jury smiles. Harvey has the distinct feeling that she might slip him her number if he ever sees her again. 

“It’s about how you realized that the memo was a fake. Can you talk about that?” 

“Sure.” He gazes at Donna again. “My executive assistant, Donna Paulsen, is the best in the city. Some of you might call that debatable, but it’s not. So I knew that when she said she never saw the memo, she wasn’t lying and she wasn’t wrong. When speaking to my ex-associate, Mike Ross, I began to wonder if somehow the memo had been planted. I decided to pursue the idea.” 

“And you pursued how, exactly?” 

“I spoke with Travis Tanner, who was on the Coastal Motors case. We boxed it out, and I got him to answer one question. He responded that yes, the memo was a fraud.” 

“So you’re telling me that you had verbal confirmation from a source other than this tape that the memo was a fraud?” 

“Yes,” Harvey says. 

“Though he didn’t come forth with that information to the Pearson Hardman partners, correct?”

Harvey shrugs. “He’d get disbarred. I can’t exactly blame him.” 

Jessica tilts her chin, giving him a long look, acting as if she is actually trying to get the truth out of her witness. Honestly, she could care less what Harvey says, as long as it’s not something that Hardman or the court can use against them. 

“Thank you, Mr. Specter, that is all. He’s all yours, Daniel.” 

Hardman glares at Jessica, but stands and paces around Harvey. 

“Really, Mr. Specter, I just can’t understand one thing. Sure, the memo might have been a fraud. But what exactly prompts you to believe that it was planted by me?” 

“You know, I can’t recall the exact conversation with Mr. Tanner. But you came up. So that was a little bit of confirmation in itself,” Harvey replies. 

“Not good enough, Mr. Specter. Mr. Tanner did not say that I was behind this in any way.” 

“No, but Cameron Dennis says you were,” Harvey smirks. “And Travis Tanner implied it. So I’d say there are two counts against you at this point.” 

Hardman shakes his head, disgusted. “This is unbecoming of you, Mr. Specter. Twisting words…” 

Harvey raises his eyes, glancing at Donna yet again, remembering that this is chance is the chance he has. Getting angry with Hardman will only lessen their case. So he just shrugs. 

“You can go,” Hardman says after a moment. 

“Thanks,” Harvey spits out sarcastically. 

The judge clears his throat, obviously half intrigued by the drama and half irritated. “Please call you next witness, Ms. Pearson. And can we please have some etiquette in this court room?” 

“Of course, Judge,” says Jessica smoothly. “And I’ll call to the stand Ms. Dana Scott.” 

Harvey reaches his seat next to Donna just as Scottie gets on the stand. It’s a good choice: she looks sharp and put together, and it definitely irks Hardman to see his former lawyer testifying against him. Scottie smiles sweetly at the jury and then positions herself so that her skirt rides up. It’s unbecoming for a top lawyer, but at this point, they’ve been instructed to all they can to turn the jury onto their side. At the same time, he wonders if they’ve wasted a witness. Scottie’s testimony can’t be that important; it only helps fill out the story that Jessica is creating for the jury. He hopes that Donna’s fourth witness is worth something, because he isn’t sure exactly where the jury is at. 

“You were good,” Donna whispers in his ear, as Scottie states her name. 

“Tried to stay calm,” he admits. 

She just squeezes his hand, and he knows that she’s happy. 

“Ms. Scott, I just want to ask you a little about your reception of this tape and why you decided not to continue to be a part of Mr. Hardman’s defense. Surely something on this tape really changed your mind. But let’s start with how the tape was sent to you.” 

“No distinguishing marks. I didn’t recognize the return address. It was anonymous,” Scottie tells her. “I opened it, hoping it would help Mr. Hardman’s case. But after listening I knew I didn’t want to be a part of the case any longer. At least not from his side.” 

“Because you believed that Cameron Dennis was telling the truth on that tape?” 

“Yes,” Scottie says. “I know Donna Paulsen and I know that she’s good at getting the truth out. And I know that she didn’t send this, because I’m familiar with her and Pearson Hardman. This was someone from the outside and it was not a joint set-up or anything of the kind.” 

“That’s all,” Jessica says breezily. “Just wanted to let the jury know exactly how clean this evidence is.” 

“Waste of a witness, don’t you think?” Hardman says. 

“Maybe,” Jessica says, cocking her head at some the male members of the jury. “Maybe not. Don’t you have any questions for her, Daniel?” 

But there really isn’t anything relevant to Hardman to ask, so he just shakes his head and lets her step down.

“I have one witness left,” Jessica announces clearly, after Scottie walks off the stand, shaking her assets. “Ms. Donna Paulsen.” 

Harvey feels a tightening in his throat as his executive assistant, bed partner, and newest commitment stands. He knows she can hold her own, but he worries, just for a moment, thinking of the glint in Hardman’s eyes, the vendetta that the man has for Donna. 

“I’m good,” she mouths to him, and then seats herself primly on the stand to state her name. 

Jessica smiles calmly at Donna, and they share a moment that perhaps is only understandable to the two of them. It’s a knowing moment, half smug, half ready, and they both flick the hair out of their faces, and narrow their eyes. Harvey leans forward, entranced by his two favorite women working together. 

“Let’s talk about the circumstances surrounding the tape, shall we?” Jessica says. 

“Whatever you want.” 

“Why did you go to Cameron Dennis?” 

“He threatened me at brunch one day, saying I would be out of a job. It surprised me because Cameron has never been involved in Pearson Hardman politics, per se. It got me thinking, trying to make some connections between all of the attacks that the firm was undergoing.” 

“Did you go for Harvey Specter?” 

“No, I wasn’t given any instructions to do so.” 

“Were you involved with Harvey Specter at the time?” Jessica asks gently. 

Donna stares at him, he can feel the heat of her stare, and this is when he realizes why she ended him—really understands it—and when he knows that whatever she says in this trial, about not caring for him or loving for him, will be a lie. Because he can feel the heat of her stare from across the room, and that makes it enough. 

“No.” 

“Did you love him?” 

“It was complicated. We’ve always shared a close relationship. Once I said he was a family member you wouldn’t want to see too often.” 

Jessica laughs, prompting some of the jury members to also giggle. 

“So you manipulated Cameron into believing you were interested in working for him.” 

“Yes. Just to get some information. No illegalities though.” 

“And he told you that Hardman planted the memo?” 

“Yes.” 

“And at that time did you know where that tape recorder was?” 

“I assumed it was with Louis Litt. That’s whose tape recorder it is. But he was fired months ago, so I really have no idea. Maybe someone else has the same model. Regardless, I had no idea exactly where it was.” 

This is a semi-lie, Harvey knows. She knew that the tape recorder was supposed to be in the couch—that was what she explained to Harvey after the whole ordeal. But she didn’t know under what cushion or even if it was there. So with a smart choice of words, she gets out of perjuring herself. He smiles. 

“And you didn’t send this tape to Dana Scott?” 

“No.” 

“But you can verify that the transcript is correct?” 

Jessica passes Donna a piece of paper, which Donna reads over carefully. “Yes, this is all true. This is how the conversation went.” 

Jessica nods, eyes calculating, perhaps deciding whether or not to ask any more questions. Harvey hopes, ridiculously, that she does, because he certainly doesn’t want Hardman pushing Donna, prodding her, and trying to find all of her soft spots. But, the trial moves on, regardless of Harvey’s feelings, and it’s Hardman up there, eyes narrow. Donna reciprocates though, chin held high, watching him superciliously. 

“Ms. Paulsen, how can you vouch for Mr. Dennis’ truthfulness when he has a track record for lies, which you very well know?” 

“If you’re insinuating something, you might as well stop. I wasn’t a part of Cameron Dennis’ indiscretions.” 

“Answer the question,” Hardman replies. 

“I can’t vouch for it, but I do know that Cameron Dennis said it, and that definitely sheds question over your actions. And coupled with Travis Tanner’s conversation, I’d definitely say there is a lot of doubt.” 

“And yet, no reason for the jury to charge me of a crime?” 

“No reason to absolve you either, Mr. Hardman.” 

Hardman’s face relaxes, seeing this is a win. It is, in a way, as Donna has just admitted that she didn’t witness a crime, she heard about it. But neither Jessica nor Donna seem on edge, so Harvey reminds himself to relax. He wishes Donna had told him this ‘secret weapon,’ but she’s worried about giving up too much information—“Hardman has eyes and ears everywhere, still,” she had said, “I’m keeping my secrets.” 

“And you’re telling me you had no idea that conversation was being taped?” 

“It’s always a possibility.” She grins ferociously. “You know, ever since Watergate, I’ve always thought about that possibility. And Cameron Dennis does have a reputation for being shady…so yes, it did cross my mind.” 

“An answer for everything, Ms. Paulsen.” 

“As you well know, Mr. Hardman.” 

“Well, I just mean that you have quite the history with Mr. Dennis. A hatred, I might say. So it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that you want to exact some revenge on him. And you might want to exact revenge on me? For causing a little uprising in your firm? Are you vengeful, Ms. Paulsen?” 

“I fight for what’s mine,” Donna says with a shrug. “But I don’t lie for it. The truth is the truth.” 

“Is that why you shredded the Coastal Motors memo?” 

“I plead the fifth,” Donna replies. 

Hardman shrugs and moves to the front of the jury. “Take this testimony as you will, but Ms. Paulsen’s protective nature does not exclude her from drastic measures. She shredded that Coastal Motors memo because she wanted to protect Harvey Specter. Perhaps she also made a fake tape to protect Jessica Pearson. This woman is the reason that we should doubt the validity of this tape.” He raises his eyebrows at Donna. “No further questions.” 

*

Donna and Harvey sit across from each other, at a tiny table, in a tiny coffee shop. It’s a quiet moment; they both take off early from work, wanting this silence. She has her hands warming around her cup of coffee. He mimics her. 

“Do you think this will work out for us?” she asks, her voice cutting through the background clamor of the coffee shop. 

“I thought you were the one who was sure. The one with the secret weapon.” 

“I am—I just,” a pause. “You know, the thing is, even if we win, will the firm ever be the same? Now we have Scottie there, and we’ll get rid of the Hardman part forever, but right now there’s no Mike and no Louis—it’s just not the way it was when we got there the first time.” 

He frowns. He doesn’t like thinking about change or her uncertainty. 

She reaches her hand out, and he takes it. Their skin is the same temperature, that warm soft feeling pervades the spaces between their fingers. He squeezes gently, not minding the intimacy. After all this time, this intimacy is what he craves, what he realizes they’ve both been fighting all this time for. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he finally croaks out. 

“Of course it does.” 

“No,” he shrugs. “Look, I want Mike back and I want the firm to be right, because I love where I work. But right now, I’ve finally figured us out, and that’s all that matters. Right now, you’re the only thing in the world that I care about making work.” 

She blinks wildly just for a moment, but she doesn’t cry. She has too much control for that. 

“Thanks, Harvey,” she whispers. He kisses her knuckles. “I—uh, feel the same way.” 

He removes his hand from hers and sips at his coffee again. They spend the rest of the hour just talking, sharing. He watches her face, shining in the dark, her hair framing it, her eyes bright against it. She is animated, and he is lulled by her voice and her words and her thoughts, until he is sucked into her mind, into the essence of her. 

It reminds him of fleeting times in days past, post-coital moments in the sun, or reading a book by her side. Peaceful. The times he had really indulged in considering their future—the times that should have been a sign to him. 

*

This is when they really start rebuild. Passion had propelled them forward, but it had also torn them down, exposed hurts to the bone. Passion lacked time, it lacked words, it lacked silence. But now, they try to sit down and eat together, try to arrange the bed pillows to suit them best, try to give space while being close. And in silence, in the calm, they rebuild. 

*

She can’t help but follow the lines of his shoulder with her fingertips. He hums deep in his throat, and she feels heat in the depths of her belly. They haven’t slept together yet. All of their touches have been subtle, little kisses here and there. They are scared. Once they were scared of losing the comfortable passion, and now they are scared of losing the comfortable intimacy. 

He has his eyes on a deposition, reading each line carefully, highlighting a few key words. 

She presses a hot kiss to his neck, and he stiffens immediately. She takes the opportunity to squeeze past his arms and somehow maneuver herself into straddling his lap. She can’t help but grin at the expression on his face—a combination of want and surprise—but he ignores her amusement and simply closes the file and draws his attention to her neck. 

Instead of just kissing, he sucks, finding spots he must remember from the last time they did this, trailing his mouth up until he reaches the lobe of her ear which he gently teases with his teeth and then spends time sucking on until she is a straining against him, hands bracing his shoulder. 

But when her eyes flutter open, all she suddenly wants is to kiss him. She leans down and presses her lips to his. They stay like that, just for a moment, like two children, sharing their first kiss, until he finally coaxes her mouth open with his tongue. She quivers, feeling him give her tongue a long swipe with his own, and she discovers all the ridges and tastes of him (coffee, mint, a hint of sugar) that she once knew. He shudders against her too, and she wonders what she tastes like, to have such an effect on him. 

She’s not sure how long it takes them to have their fill of each others’ mouths, but when she does part from him, she’s sure that her lips are red and a little bruised. He tangles a hand in her hair and sweeps it out of her eyes. But she’s on edge, and can’t help but tilt her hips into his just a little. He grinds back automatically, and she gasps, because he’s hard, and she hasn’t felt him like this in so long. 

“Bedroom,” she gasps, because she doesn’t want to do it on the table, just because it would feel wrong, after all of those words about doing it right and then not having the control to move into their bed. She slides of his lap, her body smarting with the lack of contact, so she grabs his hand instead. 

As they walk, bumping into a chair, a couch, and a corner, he unbuttons her shirt and slides it down her shoulders. Somehow, by the time they fall onto his soft duvet, she’s naked, shuddering at his touch in the pale sun. She wonders what she looks like to him, her hair dark red against his white sheets, her skin almost the same shade of white except for the rosy patches blossoming because of his mouth and soft touches, except for the pinpricks of freckles that decorate her body. But when he looks down on her, she’s sure she sees love, even if that seems impossible, so she lets Harvey spread her out, spread-eagled, so he can kiss her body away. 

It’s a euphoria that she never really felt before, although semblances of this cloudy haze entered their lovemaking times before (because really they were partially in love then too, and partially committed, and partially an ending), but now it only breaks when he kisses the core of her and suddenly it’s not just euphoria, it’s deep grinding need as she bucks her hips against his face, feeling crude and wanting and darkly animal. She can feel him laugh against her, his hand still cupping her hip, fingers sketching designs against her, as light and loving as before, and the contrast of it (and she realizes, yes, they can be passion and they can be love and they can do this all at the same time) shatters her. 

He pushes himself up the bed, so that their faces are level, and licks his lips. She bursts into laughter, though the remnants of her orgasm still rack her body, and he kisses her so that she can taste herself. 

He is swollen now, ready for her, and though her body feels sated, it also craves for him. After he slips a condom on, she lets him slide on top of her. She lets him take control, and let him mutters how tight she is and how good it feels to be back inside of her. She simply meets Harvey’s rhythm, letting out a groan once or twice, until his speed intensifies, and her throat grows raw from the amount of moaning. 

She feels the orgasm in the small of her back and it begins to travel up her until it reaches her head and vibrates down her whole body, and she cries out his name again and again, while he muffles his groans into her neck. 

Donna nestles into his shoulder. They are both hot and a little sticky, but they don’t mind, their hands linked, their mouths just close enough to kiss when the moment strikes, their bodies totally touching from head to toe. 

She knows this is it, that sex will never be the same if it isn’t like this, a hot neediness that comes only from how much she wants his heart. 

* 

The sunlight stretches out, somewhere between time and scotch. In his office they are steps apart from each other, Jessica at the window. But as he swishes his scotch, and Donna drinks silently, there is power between the three of them—and Mike in spirit, Donna thinks, imagining the ex-associate, hopefully with Rachel. 

She has never liked the taste of scotch, but she always drank it with Harvey. They have made concessions for each other. They have gotten used to those concessions. Those things aren’t concessions any longer; they are compromises integral to their victory. 

She feels his eyes on her constantly, the sun in her hair, the scotch a long scratch in her throat. It’s the happiest she has been for a long time, and later, in his arms, as they thrust into each other, she will tell him that, as a way of saying I love you. 

*

 _December_

 

They thought they had all the little things figured out: what side of the bed he is supposed to take and what side she prefers, the nighttime temperature, what news channel they like. But as time goes on, they realize things have to be rearranged. 

They argue over stupid things, like whose breakfast is healthier, and if they should leave a light on in case one of them needs to get out of bed in the middle of the night. And she finds herself trying hard not to be a control freak—she’s used to scheduling things and taking his phone calls and being a little too acquainted with his life. They try hard to acclimate. 

Arguments often end in laughter, though sometimes she finds herself using her acting skills to guilt him. He starts catching on quickly. 

But this is a life, she realizes some days, this is a life they are building, and they are moving into the future, fearlessly, in a way that she thought they never would. 

* 

The trial has been put on hold for a few weeks, with Hardman asking for more time, probably trying to find another witness or some foolproof evidence to save himself. But finally her and Harvey are sitting in their usual spot, waiting for Jessica to call up their final witness.

When Emily Otto climbs up to the stand, her dark hair and red lips against pale skin grabbing the attention of most of the room, Donna turns to Harvey and winks at him. 

“Nice work,” he says. 

“That’s it?” 

“I’ll give you your reward later. Don’t be greedy.” 

She laughs, but imagines him climbing on top of her and marking her skin. It’s enough to make her slump in her seat, slightly slack-jawed until she can gain control of her desire. She doesn’t turn to acknowledge his smirk, but she knows it’s there. Instead, she pays attention to the trial, admiring Jessica’s raw power and the easy way she controls the room. 

“Ms. Otto, what is it that you do for Mr. Cameron Dennis?” 

“I schedule meetings and help him with his personal errands,” Emily says clearly. 

“Even though Mr. Dennis is currently unemployed?” 

Emily shrugs. “He has a lot of callers, and he can pay an assistant like me. He prefers that I take care of the details.” 

“Always a lazy man that Cameron Dennis,” Jessica remarks to the jury. 

“Object—” Hardman starts. 

“Yes, yes, strike that from the record.” Jessica waves her hand nonchalantly. “Come now, Daniel, let’s take jokes as they are. Funny. Like this whole trial. Are you sure you don’t want to drop this suit now?” 

“Ms. Pearson!” The judge’s voice rings out, but Jessica doesn’t shrink. Today, she is on the offensive, ready to make her kill. 

“Sorry, your Honor. Anyway, Ms. Otto, let’s continue, as Mr. Hardman would like us to. Tell me, did you ever witness Cameron Dennis meeting with Daniel Hardman?” 

“Yes, maybe twice or three times,” says Emily. “They also spoke on the phone often.” 

“Really! So it seems that Mr. Dennis did know Mr. Hardman quite well. Well, Ms. Otto, can you tell me anything about their conversations?” 

“Not on a daily basis. But I do know that they were working together to bring Pearson Hardman down in the aftermath of a fraudulent memo. I think I remember them talking about a car company. Coastal Motors?”

Donna smirks at her friend’s acting skills. They had prepped for a few hours the night before, with Donna helping Emily mostly on how to act uncertain on the stand, so that the jury wouldn’t suspect any relationship between Pearson Hardman and Emily. 

“You’re so proud,” Harvey laughs into her ear. 

“Yeah, well, look at her. I did that,” Donna whispers back proudly, and then returns her gaze to the front of the room. 

“Mind if I ask how you know about the memo and the plan to bring Pearson Hardman down?” Jessica asks. 

“Sometimes Mr. Dennis left the intercom on. I turned it off whenever I realized, but I, uh, was rather interested by these conversations.” 

“You didn’t go to Mr. Dennis with any concerns, however.” 

“No,” Emily replies. “I know I should have. But I needed the job.” 

“Understandable,” Jessica soothes. “Perhaps a misjudgment, but an understandable one. What do you know about that memo?”

Emily shifts her eyes to Hardman and then drops her gaze, as Donna taught her. “Mr. Hardman planted it in order to hurt the firm. But it didn’t work and he wanted revenge. And that’s why he asked Mr. Dennis to put Katherine Bennett on a systematic witch hunt while he sued Pearson Hardman.” 

Jessica smiles thinly. “And I think our Ms. Otto is all the proof we really need. Your witness, Mr. Hardman.” 

“Let me ask you something,” Hardman says. “Did you send that tape to try and frame me and Cameron Dennis? Perhaps some personal agenda?” 

“I really can’t recall.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“I can’t recall.” 

Hardman coughs. “Did you send the tape?” 

“I can’t recall. I send all sorts of packages and letters all day.” 

“Did you know about the tape recorder?” 

“I saw it in the office, yes.” 

“Did you plant it?” Hardman presses. 

“I placed it out of the way so that I could put down a bundle of papers,” Emily says. 

Harvey places an insistent hand on Donna’s knee. “Is she perjuring herself?” 

“No,” Donna says. “We had the cleaning woman place the tape recorder on his desk early in the morning so that we could keep up this lie. We decided beforehand, in case this trial got this far. I thought of everything, Harvey.” 

“What was your intention with the tape recorder?” 

“To leave it alone?” Emily asks, sounding uncertain. 

“Objection,” Jessica says. “He is badgering the witness.” 

“Alright,” the judge says. “Sustained. Do you have any more questions, counselor?” 

Hardman closes his eyes, and finally, Donna thinks, he has realized that he has lost. That with the evidence sound so overwhelming, the jury just can't side with his defense. 

“No, Judge.” 

“Then let us move on. Ms. Pearson, your last statement?” 

She nods. “I’d simply like to implore the jury to look at the evidence. We have a witness and a clean piece of evidence that implicate Daniel Hardman in the fraudulent Coastal Motors memo. What else would a jury need? This illegality cannot be overlooked. Daniel Hardman must be punished. I trust that the jury will be able to see the truth in my statement and will prosecute accordingly.” 

It’s short, but seems to do its job, as Donna sees a few members of the jury nodding their heads. She hopes that they will be able to convince any of the doubters in the group. 

“Mr. Hardman, the defense?” the judge asks. 

“I am not guilty,” Daniel Hardman says. “And the prosecution did not witness this so-called crime being committed. The jury should remember that as it moves forward. All of this is based on poor supposition. Thank you.” 

But when Hardman sits down, after one of the briefest speeches Donna has ever seen him give, she sees the despair on his face. He spreads his hand out, touching all of the documents he has spread out, and he seems very alone.

* 

“This jury charges Mr. Daniel Hardman as guilty on all counts of fraud,” Mike says as a reminder, in the midst of their alcohol-induced haze.

Rachel shoves his shoulder. “You’ve said that about twenty times, Michael.” 

“I’m just so happy,” Mike replies and smacks a big kiss on her cheek. 

“Oh, God, they’re at it again,” Harvey mocks, but he too is feeling loose and easy. His arm isn’t quite around Donna, but it brushes at the skin under her shirt, and she leans into his body heat. No one has said anything yet, although Harvey notices curious eyes. He’s glad that Jessica left an hour ago; otherwise he might have to check his demeanor more often. 

“Young love,” Donna says, taking another swig of champagne. 

“Oh, come on,” Rachel says, rolling her eyes. “Look at you two.” 

“I may be young, but not him,” retorts Donna, and pops a balloon. Mike winces, and she reaches for another one, grinning wickedly. 

“We’re the same age,” Harvey defends. 

“So you think.” 

They pass the bottle of champagne around one more time (Harvey is in everyone’s good graces this time around, mostly because he spent about five hundred dollars on alcohol). He takes a healthy amount and sips, feeling the bubbles creep down into his stomach, and the slightest burn on his tongue. 

It’s certainly strange to be celebrating so heavily in the current company, but he can’t help admire his ex-associate (but soon to be current, Harvey isn’t going to just let him get away) and his exuberance. 

And Donna, he thinks, watching her in the setting sun. She is made for this, this celebration. She is made for this glory, as she burns brightly, a flush high on her cheeks and spreading to her chest. She looks like the sun itself. 

“We’re the best,” Mike says suddenly. 

Rachel starts cracking up, but Harvey nods. “Yeah, kid, we are.” 

Startled, Donna cranes her neck, probably to look into his eyes (she’s getting into that habit, trying to read his eyes, it’s like somehow she found the key to understanding him there), and narrows her own.

“We’re the best,” he says again, a finger rubbing against the flush on her right cheekbone. 

* 

She is scared still, scared of the what if’s, and sometimes she lies in bed wondering, what if they come for her and Harvey again, what if she is put on trial for the worst and only mistake she ever made, what if Harvey and her don’t work, what if everything they’ve lost stays lost and nothing gets better. 

He tells her it will be okay, kneeling above her, his eyes so dark, even darker than the dark of the room. 

He says it will be okay because they are strong and they are them and they will never, ever let anyone storm into their lives again. 

She believes this, because she believes that Harvey tells her everything now, and that he won’t lie. She believes this because suddenly she can’t see any other direction to move in but this one. 

She thinks she will still be scared though, maybe always be scared. But day by day she starts forgetting about being scared, and soon even if she’s frightened she can’t feel it, all she can feel is Harvey around her, Harvey’s hands on her face, Harvey’s hair in her hands, his breath on her skin at night while they both dream in separate worlds and wake up and smile, glad to be in this one. 

*

This time, sitting in Jessica’s office isn’t so bad. Though he still feels a jarring sense of ‘not okay’ when he’s with Jessica, they can’t help but smile at each other, reveling in their victory. 

“We did it,” Jessica says. “And before you say it, I never doubted you.” 

“Bullshit,” he replies good-naturedly. 

“Alright, I doubted you. Who wouldn’t, Harvey?” She holds up the teapot. “Tea?” 

It’s strange how much that little gesture means to him—the teapot he got back from Hardman rising to pour him a steaming cup (and Jessica always has the best tea, even he, a certified coffee addict can admit that). Every meeting he has had with her in the past year has been riddled with tension. Now, they feel like two people just relaxing over a warm brew. 

“We have to talk about something,” he says. 

She pauses, her spoon hovering over her cup, tiny granules of sugar shining in the bright light of her office. 

“Really, Harvey? Because if this is about your name on the door, I believe we had somewhat of an agreement.” She slips the spoon into the cup and stirs thoughtfully. “You demanded, and at that moment I did agree. And I’m not going to go back on that. You’re back in my good graces, Harvey, and here’s your reward.” 

He smiles. “Yeah, I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t make me pretty happy. But it’s not about that.” 

“Okay,” she says, raising an eyebrow. 

“There are people who helped us out with this case, and we need to give them their dues.” 

“Didn’t realize you were such a stickler for fairness, Harvey.” 

“Look,” Harvey says, leaning forward. “If we’re moving forward without Hardman we need to make sure we have people on our side. And we need to set a precedent. Pearson Specter is a better version of Pearson Hardman, and that means we treat our people well.” 

“Agreed,” Jessica says. “So, who is it you propose I give some rewards to? I know I’ve already put Dana Scott on the map with a partnership at Pearson Specter, and I believe she has stipulated that her new secretary will be Emily Otto. Who else?” 

“Mike,” Harvey says. “The kid needs a job. And he helped with this case even though he’s not an associate here anymore. He loves this place and he deserves a place here.” 

“Harvey, he does not have a law degree. That’s not starting off right.” 

He levels his gaze so that he stares straight into her eyes. “We hire him as a freelance consultant. On the side, you send him to school and law school. He passes the bar. We hire him as a fifth year associate.” 

“You want me to wait six years to hire the kid?” 

“Let’s be serious, he’s going to do some accelerated program. Plus, I’m pretty sure he has a year or two of undergrad under his belt. All he needs are some glowing letters from us, and he’ll be in and out in no time.” 

She sips a little more aggressively this time. 

“Fine,” she says. “Fine. But I better not regret this, Harvey.” 

He ignores this and moves on. “Louis.” 

“You really want me to give concessions to Louis? I would have thought you’d be happy to see him gone.” 

“He gave Donna that Dictaphone—basically he gave her the idea. And we don’t want to lose his clients for good. Maybe we can still get them back. He’s a good lawyer.” 

“And should I give him his senior partner position?” 

“Tell the rest of the partners there was a misunderstanding. Tell them that because of a change of leadership you see this as best.” 

He has a feeling that she was going to do this anyway, because she simply nods, a slightly amused light in her eyes. But he settles back and pretends that he has gotten his way. She can read him though, and the light increases, until the amusement reaches her lips and she’s grinning. 

“And, because things come in threes, who’s your last pick, Harvey?” 

“Donna.” 

“She’s been forgiven for all of what happened with the memo. I let you rehire her. What else does she need? A raise?” 

He shakes his head. “I need you to overlook something else for me.” 

Now she places her teacup down pointedly. “Jesus, Harvey, how many things am I supposed to overlook? Mike’s degree? The memo? What else?” 

“The employee fraternization rule.” 

“Excuse me?” 

He coughs uncomfortably. He and Jessica have always made it clear that they are not interested in each other’s personal lives, but this time, he needs her to understand. 

“Donna and I are involved.” 

“Don’t let it affect your work,” she says. “It has before.” 

She’s right, of course. It was Donna’s loyalty to him and his devastation at the loss of her that contributed to the firm’s problems. He feels an urge to hang his head, but resists. Jessica smiles softly at him. 

“I’m glad for you, Harvey. And for Donna I will overlook the employee fraternization rule. Though I expect that I won’t even notice that I’m doing so.” 

“Thank you, Jessica,” he says, and thinks that if Donna was there, she would laugh at him. But he means it. At this point, he doesn’t know what he would do if Jessica said that he had to stay away from Donna. 

*

Everything is red, red like her lipstick stain on his collar, like her hair against her shoulder. 

He peels her out of the red chiffon dress slowly, kissing the skin that the dropping zipper exposes. A cluster of freckles sits to the right of her back. Her tiny red thong taunts him; so do the red marks that his mouth leaves. 

Everything is red, when he buries his face in her hair, he sees red. She clenches and unclenches around him. It’s hot in their bed, and he sweats in long streaks, face still buried in all the red that she is. Out of the corner of his eye (he opens them just as he feels the sinking wave of his orgasm), he can see the red holly that she decorates his window with. 

He still sees red when he slides out of her. It’s a hazy, warm red, not like anger, but like Donna. The brightness of her. He feels it inside himself too, aching and arching, mostly just burning. 

He wonders when the red got inside him. He knew it was all around, but now it’s like the red, like she, has crept inside of him. The red sits low in his belly, marking its territory and drawing itself safely into the crevices of his body. 

Sometimes he asks it get out, to stop making him see red and feel red and be red all the time, but it won’t leave. He resigns himself to it, and soon it’s not resigning, it’s just a part of him, and without that red sitting inside him he wouldn’t himself any more. 

*

Saying I love you is hard for the both of them. Those are words she says sometimes to her parents, but for the most part she keeps them locked up because those words, more than anything, are serious and powerful and more physical than any touch. 

She thinks about it often, so often, and she knows that inside she loves him, but the words never make it past her lips. She worries about what he’ll say, if he’ll spit his bite of toast out or laugh or tell her that it’s too early to think things like that

Because what will she say—I’ve loved you forever now, or it feels like forever, and how can it be too early, and will it ever be the right time? 

So it’s strange when he calls her into his office, right before they leave work to enjoy their Christmas break. He is standing by the shelf of records that she knows is his most important, just in his vest, arms crossed. 

“Everything okay?” she asks. 

“Come here,” he says. “I have to give you your Christmas present.” 

She fidgets uncomfortably, “Harvey, it’s not Christmas yet. And we’re—we’re in the office.” 

He rolls his eyes at her and pulls a record out of the shelf. He extends it out and walks towards her. She looks at it—it looks old, perhaps played often. 

“This was my dad’s favorite record. He would’ve wanted you to have it because he loved you. You know that? He kept telling me you were his favorite. He liked you more than his own sons.” He swallows. “He said you were better than his wife. My mother. He said I’d never have to be scared of what you’d do to me.” 

She takes the record, holding it gently. 

“I want you to have it, because I love you too.” 

She can’t help but jerk her face up, meeting his eyes in shock. He looks straight at her, mouth curved only slightly in a smile. But for the most part, he watches her just as carefully and seriously as she watches him. 

“Put it on,” she demands. “Put the record on.” 

He takes it from her and obliges. The sound of the slow jazz trickles into the room, and she’s glad that barely anyone else is in the office, because she wants to enjoy this with him, the sound of a sultry piano, and Gordon Specter’s presence, and the I love you that he just said. She sinks down on the couch, reveling in all of this, until he clears his throat, and she realizes she hasn’t responded to his confession, and that he is staring at her half in fear, half in awe. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah. God, Harvey, of course I love you. Of _course_.” 

She starts to laugh, because yes, how can it have been so hard to say this, when it’s so obvious that she loves him and it should have been to him too. She laughs because it took them so long, when it never should have, though it couldn’t have been any other way. 

He sinks down next to her, grabbing her hand to hold, and presses a long kiss to her cheek, which she turns into a full-on kiss, lips and all, ignoring the niggling doubt that Louis or Jessica or a spare associate might see. 

The record plays on and on, never skipping, never stopping, and she kisses him, her Harvey, and holds him. 

They don’t say I love you often, even after that. They work in touches and thoughts and gestures, and even when they try and talk more, try to do that thing called open communication that they’ve always had trouble with (somehow they’ve always been able to communicate, be each other’s right hands, but they can’t be straight with each other), they never really I say I love you because they know they love each other, and that is more than enough, that deep, primordial knowledge of another person’s love. 

* 

Sometimes she thinks about the future, but most of the time she doesn’t. 

Sometimes she thinks about the past, sometimes she thinks about love and promises and her heart, but most of the time she doesn’t. 

Instead, she thinks about the apples in the fruit bowl, the latest case, a merger somewhere on the table, what she’ll wear to bed to get him going, how they’re going to rise to the top again and again. 

She thinks about Harvey, nestled into the crook of her shoulder.


End file.
